A Newsletter of the Central Texas Section (www.ieee.org/CTS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc.
Published monthly (Deadline is the last day of the previous month), John R. Purvis, Editor (j.purvis@computer.org).

Quick Links

Section Activities	Chapter Activities
The Chairman's Column	Communications/Signal Processing Societies	Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
The Next Section Meeting	Computer Society	Power Engineering Society
Other Important Events and Notes of Interest	Consultant's Network	Women in Engineering
Editor's Notes	Electromagnetic Compatibility Society	Student Branches
Email List	Engineering Management Society

The Chairman's Column

Spring Senior Member Upgrade Night

As mentioned in last month's Analog, we will be holding our Senior Member Upgrade night again in Austin this month. I encourage all CTS members who are eligible to apply for their membership upgrade. The event will be held at St. Edward's University in south Austin on the evening of Tuesday, May 13. Full details of who qualifies for Senior Member status, requirements for the upgrade event, and full directions to the event site can be found here on the CTS Web site.

T. Scott Atkinson
Chairman

The Next Section Meeting

No Section meetings are planned for May.

Student Chapter Activities

Paul Kaschube, the Section's Student laison, attended the Region 5 conference held in New Orleans last month, and has prepared a series of reports on the student activities. The first report is on the student robot contest held at the conference.

The full text, along with a few pictures can be found here on the CTS Web site.

Other Important Events and Notes of Interest

Section Member Survey Continues

We will continue conducting the survey of the IEEE Central Texas Section membership for a few more weeks. This web-based survey is quick and easy, just go to http: //www.ewh.ieee.org/r5/central_texas/centex-member-survey.html and submit your information. In the interest of providing better service to our new and current members of the IEEE CTS, we'd like just a little information about you to help us know more about this Section's membership.

Note: We will NOT be using this information for any other purpose!

For further information, contact Emily Sopensky (emily@iriscompany.com).

The Computer and Technology Showcase

The CTS will be participating in the Computer and Technology Showcase, to be held May 29-30, at San Antonio's Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. The Section will have a booth to highlight the various CTS activities.

2003 IEEE International Workshop on Microprocessor Test and Verification (MTV)

The IEEE Computer Society will sponsor a conference entitled "2003 IEEE International Workshop on Microprocessor Test and Verification (MTV)" (Meeting #9259). This conference will be held May 29 - 30, 2003 in Austin, TX.

For further information, please contact, IEEE Computer Society, Conference Services, 1730 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036-1992, +1 202 371 1013, +1 202 728 0884 (Fax), or Conference Services Dept., at IEEE Operations Center at +1 732 562 3878.

15th Annual Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Conference

The 15th Annual Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards (HENAAC) will be held October 16-18, 2003 in Austin, Texas, and the academic host is the University of Texas. It includes workshops for students and professionals; a Career Fair; a summit where national leaders from the various Hispanic technical organizations meet annually; and a national awards show to honor recipients of the HENAAC annual awards.

For more information on HENAAC visit their Web site at http://www.henaac.org, or contact Gerald Garcia at gerald.garcia@ieee.org.

Kudos for CTS Members

• Ravikumar Ramachandra was elevated to Senior Member

Central Texas Section Society and Affinity Group Chapter Activities

Communications/Signal Processing Societies Topic: Not available at press time Speaker: Date: Time: Location: Reservations: If you plan to attend, please send Email to Howard Headrick at hfrjr@swbell.net for planning purposes.

Computer Society - San Antonio [for more information] Topic: Not available at press time Speaker: Date: Time: Cost: Reservations: Contact Kevin Nickels, knickels@engr.trinity.edu, 210-999-7543 Location:

Computer Society - Austin [for more information] Topic: Opening Cyc: A Discussion with OpenCyc's Project Manager The Cyc Project, an attempt to codify human common sense intelligence, is perhaps the longest-running and most ambitious artificial intelligence project in history. There have been many successes along the way, often resulting from lessons learned through failure. From its inception in 1984, the Cyc Project has intended to share its results with the world and to have the world share its knowledge with Cyc. In fact, massive-scale participation will be essential for Cyc to meet its medium-term goals. With a beta release of OpenCyc now available, the project is finally beginning to extend beyond the walls of Cycorp. This open source subset of the knowledge base ("a small step for man"), will grow significantly in the coming years, both as a result of additional Cycorp contributions and (hopefully) through large-scale participation of those who will share our vision. Speaker(s): John DeOliveira, Cycorp Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 Time: 6:30pm - Networking, 7:00pm - Program Cost: None Reservations: None Location: Hewlett Packard, 14231 Tandem Blvd, Austin, TX 78759

Consultant's Network [for more information] Topic: "Future Air Traffic Management Operations and Equipment" The FAA has been investigating various operational improvements and conducting flight tests. Satallite communications and GPS based satellite navigation are still expected to be integrated into the existing air traffic control (ATC) network. A summary of the original approach as well as the latest status and adjustments will be presented. Speaker(s): Ron Schroer, Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Aerospace and Electronic System Magazine Date: Thursday, May 8 Time: 6:30pm - Networking, 7:00pm - Program Location: China Star Restaurant, 6134 Hwy 290E, Austin, Texas, located at the north east corner of IH-35 and 290E The consultants' web directory has been updated. The directory is to be found at http://www.alesu.com/xltrp/ieeecons/listzero.htm

Electromagnetic Compatibility Society [for more information] Topic: The Ground Myth Building C 6:30 PM Social, 7 PM Lecture ABSTRACT The term "ground" is probably the most misused and misunderstood term in EMC engineering, and in fact, in all of circuit design. Ground is considered to be a zero potential region with zero resistance and zero impedance at all frequencies. This is just not the case in practical high-speed designs. The one thing that should be remembered whenever the term "ground" is used, is that "Ground is a place where potatoes and carrots thrive"! By keeping this firmly in mind, many of the causes of EMC emissions problems would be eliminated. The term "ground" is a fine concept at DC voltages, but it just does not exist at the frequencies running on today?s typical boards. All metal has some amount of resistance, and even if that resistance was near zero ohms, the current flowing through a conductor in a loop creates inductance. Current through that inductance results in a voltage drop. This means that the metal ground plane/wire/bar/etc. has a voltage drop across it, which is in direct contradiction with the intention and definition of ground. This presentation discusses the origin of the word ?ground?, what we really mean when we use the term ground and how to optimize our designs to achieve the over all goals for our reference strategy Speaker: Dr. Bruce Archambeault Date: Thursday, May 22, 2003 Time: 6:30pm - Social, 7:00pm Presentation Location: National Instruments Bld. C

Engineering Management Society [for more information]  If you are interested in the Engineering Management Society, contact Steve Prough, Vice-Chairman, sdprough@aol.com. Of interest may be the Graziadio Business Analysis site at Pepperdine University [These materials are the responsibility of the authors and publisher of the newsletter and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of IEEE]

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society [for more information]

Power Engineering Society [for more information] Topic: Satchon Speaker: TBD Date: Tuesday, May 27 Time: 6:00 - Social, 6:30 - Dinner, 7:00 - Business meeting, 7:30 - program Cost: $10, free for students Reservations: For further information, please contact Susan Thompton or Steve Kanetsky, at 512-326-3380 Location: El Gallo Mexican Restaurant, 2910 S. Congress Ave, Austin, TX

Women in Engineering [for more information] The Women in Engineering Chapter of Central Texas is planning to meet on the first Tuesday of every other month in Austin. Topic: Making Dreams Come True Speaker: Pauline Albert, Asst. Dean at St. Edward's University, Business School Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2003 Time: 6:00-8:00pm Location: La Madeleine Cafe, 9828 Great Hills Trail at Hwy 183. Food can be purchased at the cafe and brought into the meeting. Free parking is available.

CTS Student Branches St. Mary's University [for more information]   Trinity University University of Texas at Austin [for more information]   Robert Mullenix has been elected Chair for the UTA Student Branch for the 03-04 Academic year. The UTA engineering programs again ranked top ten in country in the annual rankings of academic quality by U.S. News and World Report, the Engineering graduate program moved up to ninth in the nation among 330 accredited engineering schools, and fifth among the public institutions. More details can be found in the "New Releases" section of the UTA Engineering Communications website, located at http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/index.cfm Wireless Networking and Communications Seminar http://signal.ece.utexas.edu/semina rs. University of Texas at San Antonio [for more information]

Editor's Notes

The goal of this newsletter is to provide the more than 4700 members of the Section with up-to-date and meaningful information. We welcome contributions and suggestions that will improve the newsletter. Please contact the editor, John Purvis at j.purvis@computer.org if you have any thoughts or suggestions. The deadline for submission is last day of the month.
 

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