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 25th 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

The Section and its sub-units have been very busy lately. Plus we have a lot of ongoing activities that are planned for your benefit. Please look over the list below for the latest.

Upcoming Special Events

• Fall Planning Meeting, Aug 2nd, San Marcos
• UT/IEEE Engineering Management Workshop, Aug 14-15
• Tech Policy Forum, Oct 10th, Austin (details forthcoming)

Status of Senior Member Upgrade Event

We are still getting requests for Senior Member upgrades. The 60+ applications received are being sorted, categorized by work, and the process of writing references is underway. To see your status when we have submitted them, see www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/.

Membership Survey ? Please Help us Serve You Better!

If you have not responded, please 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! Emily Sopensky (emily@iriscompany.com).

Request for Assistance

If you have personal knowledge of Mr. Chen He's professional and technical qualifications, he would like your help. Please see his request below:
I'm a senior staff software engineer at Motorola Austin. As an IEEE member (Computer society and Signal processing society), I have been doing research in the fields of estimation, control systems and fault-tolerant embedded systems design for 7 years. I have published more than 15 publications in international journals and conferences, and my research has been widely referenced. I have been a reviewer for premier international journals and conferences, including the IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronics Systems, Design Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) and Design Automation Conference (DAC).

I am applying for US permanent residency in the category of "Outstanding Researcher". One of the evidence that the INS is asking for is expert letters to support my petition. The current expert letters I've collected are mostly from professors and researchers having some type of relationship (such as my current/former supervisors, research colleagues) with me. The INS says it will be more convincing and objective to get some support letters from experts in organizations such as IEEE or major universities who don't know me personally.

Therefore, if you are an expert in the fields of control systems, signal processing, embedded systems design, high-level synthesis, and fault-tolerant computing, it would be a big help if you could write an expert support letter for my petition. To save your time, my attorney and I can prepare a draft letter and then send it to you for your review and signature.

Please do not hesitate to contact me via email if you would like to help. I need to send the application to INS by the end of the July. Thanks so much in advance!

Sincerely, Chen He, Senior Staff Software Engineer, Embedded Memory Center, Motorola, Inc., Austin, TX 78735, chen.he@motorola.com, 512-895-7936

IEEE-USA Releases New Position Statements

At it's June 19 meeting, the IEEE-USA Board of Directors approved the following new or updated position statements:
• Advanced Nuclear Power Research and Development
• Association Health Plans
• Contin u i n g Professional Competence for IEEE's U.S. Members
• Disclosure of Intellectual Property Assignment Agreements
• Engineering Licensure
• Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Electric Transportation
• Reverse Engineering

Help Wanted ? Not something you see every day!

Shah Smith and Associates is a Mechanical/Electrical/Plumbing design firm with offices in Houston and Austin. We have immediate Electrical Engineer job openings in our Houston and Austin Offices for licensed professional engineers with experience in design. Job Description : Design and analysis of electrical systems for research, healthcare, and university facilities, airport, central utility plants, and similar buildings. Electrical systems consist of power distribution systems (208/120V, 480/277V, and medium voltage up to 34.5kV), indoor and outdoor lighting systems, grounding and lightning protection systems, fire alarm and security systems, and power generation. Design includes equipment sizing, selection, and layout; duct bank as well as conduit and wiring sizing and layout; and control schematics. Analysis consists of economic feasibility, load flow and short circuit analysis, motor starting analysis, and load calculations. Must be licensed PE in State of Texas. Interested applicants may call or forward resume? and contact information to: Wesley W. Stidham, PE, C/O Shah Smith & Associates, 1524 South I-35 Suite 235, Austin, TX 78704, Phone (512) 851-0404, Fax (512) 851-0405, Email: wstidham@shahsmith.com.

As Always

We continue to work to get you involved. We welcome your feedback: s.atkinson@ieee.org. Please let all our leaders know how we are doing and make many suggestions and recommendations.

T. Scott Atkinson
Chairman

The Next Section Meeting

No Section meetings are planned for July.

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 third report is on the University Wireless Developer Contest.

The full text 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).

UT/IEEE Central Texas Section Engineering Management Workshop

The 4th annual UT/IEEE CTS Engineering Management Workshop, "Management of Product Liability", will be held August 14-15 in the large auditorium at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus, Commons building. Early registration for IEEE members is $145 on or before July 31, $195 after. Visit www.UTclee.org or call 512-471-3506 to reserve your seat. For more information click here

IEEE 2003 International Symposium on Intelligent Control (ISIC'03)

Held in Houston this coming October 5-8 at the Westin Galleria. For further information, the conference web site is at https://vlab.ee.nus.edu.sg/~isic2003/

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 https://www.henaac.org, or contact Gerald Garcia at gerald.garcia@ieee.org.

Kudos for CTS Members

• Dr. Jacob Abraham, professor of electrical and computer engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, along with recent Ph.D. graduate Vivekananda M. Vedula and Motorola's Jayanta Bhadra, won the Best Paper Award at the 21st Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) Test Symposium. The paper, titled "Program Slicing for Hierarchical Test Generation," formalized a "divide and conquer" method for taming the computational complexity of analyzing computer processor designs using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) tools.

Central Texas Section Society and Affinity Group Chapter Activities

Communications/Signal Processing Societies Topic: Broadband Everywhere - Changing the Game with Emerging "First Mile" Technologies Broadband service pricing remains high, out of reach for mass-market penetration, thus throttling a major marketing opportunity for ISPs. The cost to deploy DSL-based broadband services to residential Internet subscribers under the current network architecture has proven to be unprofitable. Between the truck rolls to the Central Office, capital costs associated with DSLAMs, POTS splitters, CPE, and micro-filters, facility-based carriers cannot make a profit. There are immediate opportunities to "change the game" for carriers and ISPs. New technologies and network architectures are available to dramatically change (reduce) the broadband deployment cost structure. Such changes include bringing platforms closer to the neighborhood, point-to-multipoint distribution over copper, pre-provisioning entire communities, and making service activation a "zero-touch" provisioning process ­ as easy as dial-up! It all adds up to a competitive offering for mass market distribution, in turn driving wider adoption of ISP services. This presentation will provide an objective perspective on various "First Mile" technologies. Address the CAPEX and OPEX challenges of the current DSL network architecture; Present an objective view of emerging ³First Mile² technologies which overcome current network limitations; Conclude with the net benefit to ISPs Speaker: Celite Milbrandt, Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Celite Systems, Inc. Date: July 17 Time: 6:30pm - 9:00pm Location: SBC Technology Resources, Inc. (SBC-TRI)m 9505 Arboreturm Blvd., Austin, TX 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: No meeting is scheduled for June, July or August Speaker: Date: Time: Cost: Reservations: Contact Kevin Nickels, knickels@engr.trinity.edu, 210-999-7543 Location:

Computer Society - Austin [for more information] Topic: Six, no Eight, no Eleven Memories for Computer Architecture The first six memory mappings are architectural, they are distinct on a logical basis, but can be folded into one or more physical renderings in various ways for cost and performance reasons. The two "implementation" memory regions map the processor (e.g. the instruction set) into ROM. Thus instruction set complexity and implementation structure can be mapped into memory and thereby quantified. Finally, I/O space and register space are easily numbered and made part of the overall "architectural memory space." And lastly, FIFOs are ubiquitous in multi-processor systems. Speaker: James Brakefield, MS EE & MS CS, IEEE Senior Member Date: July 23 Time: 6:30pm Location: Hewlett Packard, 14231 Tandem Blvd, Austin, TX 78759

Consultant's Network [for more information] Topic: Thermal Storage versus Energy Costs Utility rates for a Building are often determined by peak electrical demand. This peak load may only occur for a few hours in August, but it sets the rate for the entire year. Thermal storage has useful in reducing or even eliminating peaks. A brief history of the techniques used in Japan, Canada, and the U S will introduce the available methodology. The development and performance of a large office building will be presented. This award-winning design has unique architectural as well as engineering features. In conclusion, current trends will be discussed. Speaker(s): David G. Kilpatrick, P E Date: Thursday, July 10 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 https://www.alesu.com/xltrp/ieeecons/listzero.htm

Electromagnetic Compatibility Society [for more information] Topic: To be Determined, check Web site for details Speaker: Date: Time: Location:

Engineering Management Society [for more information] The IEEE Engineering Management Society (EMS) is presenting a series of eLearning workshops on project management, effective communication, and virtual teams. The series is offered at a significant discount for IEEE members. The first workshop on Project Planning commences July 17. Click now https://www.msilearning.com/ems for details or contact johnbarrett@ieee.org. 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: To be Determined, Check Web site Speaker: Date: Tuesday, July 22 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: Katherine Stinson: The Flying Schoolgirl Speaker: Debra Winegarten, author Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 Time: 6:00-8:00pm Location: La Madeleine Cafe, 3418 N. Lamar at 35th St. 512-302-1486

CTS Student Branches St. Mary's University [for more information] Trinity University University of Texas at Austin [for more information] 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 the 25 th of the month.
 

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