Volume 48-09

September 2004

 

Newsletter of the Central Texas Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, Inc.

Published monthly (Deadline for inclusion is the 25th day of the previous month). T. Scott Atkinson, Acting Editor, (s.atkinson@ieee.org). Have a question or comment? Contact us.

Quick Links

Section Activities	Chapter Activities
The Chairman's Column	Joint Communications / Signal Processing Societies	Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
Chapter Meetings	Computer Society	Power Engineering Society
Important Events	Consultant's Network	Women in Engineering
Editor's Notes	Electromagnetic Compatibility Society	Joint Solid-State Circuits / Circuits and Systems Societies
Email List	Engineering Management Society	Laser and ElectroOptics Society
Student Branches	Product Safety Society	Student Branches

 

IEEE Activities and Links
Your IEEE	IEEE Standards Association
Call for Papers	About the IEEE
IEEE Xplore	the Spectrum
What's New at IEEE	IEEE-USA

 

The Chairman's Column

FALL PLANNING MEETING - AUGUST 21ST

The Section held one of our semi-annual planning meetings on August 21^st in San Marcos.  I want to thank the volunteer leaders from the various Chapters of our Section for the time that they contributed to this review and planning effort. 

Section officers presented budget status, and conference results and plans.  The Chapter officers shared their successes for the first half of the year, and laid out their plans for the remainder of 2004.  Students from the four Branches in our Section made presentations (covered in more detail by the Section Student Liaison Paul Kaschube later in this issue of the Analog) of their activities and plans.  We also hosted two high school teachers from San Antonio area schools, who gave a presentation on FIRST Robotics. 

FIRST Robotics is a program that offers a great opportunity for Section members to volunteer with schools in their area, assisting High School students to construct robots.  This program is strongly supported by the IEEE.  See their web pages for more information about the 2004 robotics competition held in Atlanta:: https://www.ieee.org/portal/index.jsp?pageID=institute_level1_article&article=tionline/legacy/inst2004/june04/6w.frobo.xml.  Their program provides an opportunity for many of us with a way to volunteer in our local schools, and at the same time help the IEEE by encouraging students to pursue careers in engineering.  Look for further information about FIRST Robotics and how you can participate to appear soon on our Web site. 

A PowerPoint presentation from the Meeting will be available shortly on the Section Web site for downloading. 

"Supersize" your IEEE Membership - Upgrade to Senior Member Status

If you have a baccalaureate degree in engineering and seven or more years of professional experience you are eligible to apply for upgrade to Senior Member Grade. Complete upgrade information, including requirements can be found at: www.ieee.org/membership/upgrade.html

If you meet the requirements but never seem to have the time to complete an application, we invite you to come to an "upgrade" event on Thursday evening, October 21st at Trinity University in San Antonio. (A similar event will be held later this fall or in the spring in the Austin area.) Senior and Fellow members who have been through this process will be at the meeting to provide assistance in reviewing your applications. We will have computers available to help you to finalize your application if needed. After the event, the Central Texas Section will assign Senior and Fellow members to serve as the required references. Refreshments will be provided.

For more information, check the CTS website at: https://www.ewh.ieee.org/r5/central_texas/ or contact Joe Redfield at JRedfield@ieee.org

POSSIBLE NEW CHAPTER FOR THE CENTRAL TEXAS SECTION

New Chapter of the Power Electronics Society Forming There are about 100 members of the IEEE Power Electronics Society in central Texas and if you would like to meet some of them, here is your chance. You don't have to be a member of PELS or even a member of IEEE to come to a meeting. We just need a list of people to begin selecting a time, a place and a cross section of interests. If you would like to be apprised of the development of a new chapter, please contact Derek Bridges (512) 452-3610 at bridges@ieee.org and mention IEEE or PELS in the subject line.

APPRECIATION & KUDOS

At the Fall Planning Meeting on Saturday, August 21^st in San Marcos, in the picture below, John Purvis is shown presenting a token of appreciation to Scott Atkinson, Section Chair in 2003.  From Left to right are: Dr. Farzan Aminian (7/99 – 6/00), Joe Redfield (7/00 – 12/02), John Purvis (2004-5), Scott Atkinson (2003), and John Brogan (7/87 – 6/88).

Awards were presented in the Student Poster Competition at the Texas Symposium on Software Engineering held on Aug. 28 at the UT Pickle Campus in Austin.  Vicki Almstrum, Vice-Chair of WIE arranged the competition.  Sherry Gillespie presented the awards on behalf of the Central Texas Section Women in Engineering Chapter.  Student posters were judged by conference participants on technical merit, creativity, effectiveness of visual presentation and quality of oral presentation.  Congratulations go to Amber Karl (1st place), David Falcon Ayala (2nd place), and Ryan Cornelius and Daniel Katz (3rd place).

As Always

We continue to work to get you more involved in your professional association. We always welcome your feedback (John.Purvis@ieee.org). Please let all our leaders know how we are doing and please feel free to make any suggestions or recommendations.

John R. Purvis, PE
Chairman

 

 

Student Branch Report: Student Branch Funding First Round
Paul Kaschube, Student Liaison

 

Student Branch Presentations

The Fall Planning meeting of the IEEE Central Texas Section was held August 21, 2004, in San Marcos.   All four student branches made presentations on the written proposals they submitted June 30^th for funding from the Section.  Branch Chair Chris Torres made the presentation for UT San Antonio.   Branch president  Brandi House together with vice president Katie Rosenboom gave  the presentation for Trinity University.   Corporate liaison William Rothwell with branch chair  Daniel Fernandez and external vice chair Rebecca Neal  presented UT Austin’s funding proposal.   And branch chair Robert (Willie) Dominguez did the presentation for St. Mary’s.

 

Chris spoke of the variety of projects at UT San Antonio.  They will conduct  workshops and tutorials for its members.    The branch has been asked by the athletic department to repair and enhance a remote control blimp to be flown over athletic events.  And the student government has asked the branch to assist in the formation of a radio station.

 

Brandi emphasized the focus of the Trinity proposal is for the benefit and enhancement of its student members.    This will be done through pizza talks, cash awards,  robotic competitions,   and field trips.  

 

William Rothwell noted the UT Austin student branch has over 700 members.  One goal is to promote engineering skills outside the classroom.    One way this is achieved is by recruiting and fielding teams to numerous regional and national robotics competitions such as Region 5, Rube Goldberg and the International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC).    And some of the funds will be used  for its office space which serves as a point of contact and community center for its student branch members. 

 

Willie stated  one objective of St. Mary’s  proposal is to raise the awareness of  IEEE on its campus.    Part of the funds will support these activities by providing pizza, refreshments and T-shirts.    The student branch also does service work as promoted by the St. Mary’s.

 

With fall term starting, one primary activity for all the branches will be to recruit new members during the first several weeks.   Their recruitment efforts benefit the Central Texas Section directly because it gets a rebate for every student member.   Each school has a host of activities planned.   But each will be looking ahead to the Region 5 Conference in Denver in April 2005.   The main event at Region 5 is the robotics competition which will require a tremendous about of work to design,   build and test their entries

 

The second round of Central Texas Section funding requires the branches to prepare a competitive proposal  by September 30^th.    The amount granted to a branch from the remaining $4,000 will depend on the strength and merit of its proposal.    

 

Note: The IEEE Central Texas Section budgeted $10,000 to support the four student branches in the section.   The student branches are UT Austin, UT San Antonio, Trinity, and St. Mary’s.    The Central Texas Section has a two tier funding process to allocate these funds to the student branches.  The first round requires the branches to submit a written funding proposal by June 30^th to receive a grant of $1,500 each.   The second round requires the branches to prepare a competitive funding proposal  by September 30^th. where the amount granted to each branch from the remaining $4,000 depends on the strength and merit if its proposal.   .   

Central Texas Section Society and Affinity Group Chapter Activities

Communications/Signal Processing Societies Speaker: Dean Bekken, Senior Product Line Manager, Carrier Networks, ADTRAN, Inc., Huntsville, AL. Topic: Broadband in the Last Mile, ( ADSL 2, ADSL 2 +, VDSL, PON). Date: Thursday, September 14,2004 Time: 6:30pm - 9:00pm Location: The meeting will once again be held on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, this time in the AVAYA Auditorium of the ACE building, which is on the south side of 24th street and Speedway.  Parking will be in parking lot # 16 on the north side of 24th street by the ENS building.  (Note: We are no longer meeting at the SBC's Labs, Inc., 9500 Arboretum, Dr., 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] The San Antonio Chapter of the IEEE Computer Society is announcing the September 2004 meeting with a presentation by Matt Wright, on Salvaging Legacy Code in a New Environment.  On our Website, https://www.ieee-cs-cts.org you can get detailed information and directions to the meeting.     Reservations: Required by Monday September 13, 2004.  See procedures below.  The meeting is open to the public.  Date: Thursday, September 16, 2004 Time: 6:30 – Networking, 7:00 – Dinner, 8:00 - Program Cost: $10 members/ $2 students/$13 non-members Location: Skyline Room, Coates Center, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX Speaker:  Matt Wright  Program:  Salvaging Legacy Code in a New Environment Parking: Please note that we have parking instructions on the Web site.  The Alamo Stadium parking is reserved for Alamo Stadium Event parking.   Please check out the instructions at https://www.ieee-cs-cts.org/meeting_details.htm#Location%20&%20Directions for the parking by Laurie Auditorium. Reservations: Required by Monday, September 13, 2004, to Kevin Nickels,  knickels@engr.trinity.edu , 210-999-7543. Hope to see you at the meeting.

Computer Society - Austin [for more information] PLEASE CHECK WEB SITE BEFORE THE MEETING Speaker: Paul Preiss, Consultant Topic: The 10 Most Commonly Confused Concepts in Software Architecture , Paul Preiss Date:  September 22, 2004 Time: 6:30pm Location: National Instruments, 11500 North MoPac, Building C, room 1S15, Austin, TX 78759 About the Speaker: Paul Preiss is an independent consultant specializing in software architecture. Paul has been involved with high level architecture, design and implementation for the last 6 years. Previously Paul was the Applications Manager and Architect for Dell Pan Asia based in Kawasaki, Japan. He later became the Sr. Architect for a software consulting firm in St Paul Minnesota, where he provided architecture consulting for numerous government and private enterprise clients. Paul went on to become the Director of Engineering and Chief Architect of a digital asset management company. More recently Paul has spent most of his time creating and managing the International Association of Software Architects. The organization spans 3 countries and 6 states and is growing quickly. Paul has a bachelor's degree in Japanese from the University of Texas at Austin.

Consultant's Network [for more information] Speaker(s): TBD Topic: TBD Date: Thursday, (2nd Thursday) 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] Speaker: Topic: Date:                                (third Thursday of the month) Time: 6:30 Social, 7 PM Lecture Location:

Electron Devices Society Meeting (for more information: www.ieee.org/texedc)   Date/Time: Thursday,  October 14th, 2004      6:30pm- 8pm Meeting Location:   MER160, Room 2.114  J.J. Pickle Research Campus                                 10100 Burnet Road, Building 160 , Austin, TX 78758                                 Map:  https://www.mrc.utexas.edu/  Refreshments from 6:30 - 6:45pm Topics & Speakers:  Impact of Deuterium Incorporation on Threshold Voltage Stability Improvement and Plasma Induced Damage Reduction of HfO2 Devices   -  Hsing-Huang Tseng;  Advanced Gate electrodes: Challenges and Opportunities  -  Prashant Majhi Abstracts & Biographies:  www.ieee.org/texedc  RSVP:  Send email to Andrew.Lin@freescale.com

Engineering Management Society [for more information] The next meeting is being planned for October, 2004.  An email will be sent to each active Chapter member when the details of the meeting are finalized. We would like to announce the selection of the New Chapter Chair – Elect:  Leslie Martinich (leslie@competitivefocus.com).  Leslie is highly motivated and is eager to take the helm of this emerging Chapter.  On behalf of the Chapter, she will be attending the upcoming International Engineering Management Conference, IEMC 2004, being held in Singapore, Oct 2004.  Feel free to drop her an email to offer suggestions for upcoming Chapter activities. The Chapter and its partner, University of Texas Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering just completed the 5th Annual IEEE-UT Engineering Management Conference, held on the UT Campus, August 12-13th.  The conference presented a two track program of topics relative to the challenges faced by today’s engineering managers.  Attendance was around 100. Planning is already underway for next year’s conference which may have a new name: EMC 2005.   A special thanks to our very own Steve Prough, Chapter Co-Chairman, for his exceptional work in coordinating the IEEE program track. He did an outstanding job in putting together a “world class” set of topics and speakers.  Congratulations Steve, Job Well Done.  If you have questions or need information on our Engineering Management Society Chapter, contact Steve Prough, Co-Chairman, sdprough@aol.com.

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society TSPE / ASCE / IEEE - EMB / UTSA JOINT MEETING   Topic: The UTSA Bioengineering Program Meeting: On September 13, 2004 at 6:30 p.m. there will be a joint meeting of TSPE (Texas Society of Professional Engineers), ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) and EMB (Engineers in Medicine and Biology Society, a local Chapter of IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers).  It will be held at UTSA in the University Room (#2.06.04) of the Business Building.  The Business Building is located off Bartlett Cocke Drive near the I-10 entrance to UTSA.  General parking is available in Lots 1 through 4 in spaces that are not marked reserved.   Cost: The cost will be $17 per person.  Reservations:  Please email or call in your reservation before noon on September 10, 2004 to Carolyn Cornish by email: ccornish@pape-dawson.com or phone 210-375-9000. Speaker: Mauli Agrawal, Ph.D., P.E.  Dr. Agrawal is a Professor and Director of Biomedical Engineering and is the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research.  The topic will be “Status of the UTSA Bioengineering Program.” Directions to the University of Texas at San Antonio:  From Houston/Austin (35, or 10), take Loop 1604 going west in San Antonio.  Take the first exit past the Loop 1604/IH 10 interchange to the University of Texas at San Antonio campus.  At the light, take a left entering the campus; proceed to the visitor’s booth for parking and building directions.  You will enter the Business Building (Building 1), the University Room is on the second floor, room # 2.06.04. Note: Building 33 is under construction. . For further information, please contact David G. Kilpatrick, P.E., 210-695-1406, d.kilpatrick@ieee.org.

Power Engineering Society [for more information] Topic: TBD Speaker: TBD Date:  TBD Time: TBD 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 , 512-444-2205

Women in Engineering [for more information] Oct. 19:  Texas Conference for Women at the Austin Convention Center.  IEEE CTS WIE will have a booth at the all-day conference.  See WIE website for details on registration and agenda.  https://ewh.ieee.org/r5/central_texas/wie/.   Nov. 9:  Tour of Sematech Clean Room from 6:00 - 8:00 pm. See WIE website for details and reservation.  https://ewh.ieee.org/r5/central_texas/wie/.

Joint Solid-State Circuits / Circuits and Systems Societies Topic: No meeting planned for August Speaker: TBA Date: TBA Time: TBA Location: TBA For further information, contact Gerald Garcia at gerald.garcia@ieee.org

Product Safety Engineering Society Topic: Product Design for the EU, Technical Highlights and Pending Changes Speaker: Lauren Crane Date:  September 21, 2004 (NEW: 3th Tuesday of the month) Time: 6:30pm Location: Crossroads Systems, 8300 N. Mopac The new Product Safety Engineering Society provides a forum for the exchange of ideas, techniques and information in all aspects of product safety, regulatory compliance and related professional issues.   Future meetings will Oct 19, and our November / December meetings will be combined into one meeting in early December, date to be announced.    We encourage you, others in your organization, or other interested parties to participate in our meetings every month. The PSES meets at Crossroads Systems, 8300 N. MOPAC in Austin, on the fourth Tuesday of every month except in November/December. A combined monthly meeting is held in early December to allow members and guests to enjoy the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. For further information about the PSES, please contact Dale Ritzen at (512) 651-5338. Chapter Chair:  Daniece Carpenter (daniece_carpenter@dell.com).  To learn more check out: https://www.theinstitute.ieee.org/inst_art.jsp?isno=09031&arnumber=09031_9w.newssociety&section=5

Laser and Electro-Optics Society Topic: TBD Speaker: TBD Date: TBD Time: TBD Location: TBD For information contact Ray Chen raychen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.

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]

 

Upcoming Conferences

AUTOTESTCON 2004 – San Antonio

AUTOTESTCON 2004 conference beginning with seminars on 20 Sep and continuing with a technical program 21-23 Sep. The theme for the show will be "Technology and Tradition Unite in San Antonio".   The conference will be held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center and over 1500 attendees from all over the world are expected to attend. AUTOTESTCON is the premier conference dealing with automatic test and diagnostics. There will also be over 200 exhibits displaying the latest in technology innovations. The Central Texas IEEE Section is a sponsor for AUTOTESTCON. More information can be found at our web site www.autotestcon.com/2004. Volunteers are still needed to assist with registration Sunday through Thursday.  Any interested should contact the Registration Chair: Butch McGehee email bmcgehee@caci.com.   For more information and to register, click here.

 

2004 IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems - Austin

Systems-on-a-Chip for Wireless Networking, Co-sponsored by IEEE Signal Processing Society and IEEE Circuits and Systems Society  The 2004 IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Systems (SiPS' 04) is an annual workshop that is co-sponsored by the Signal Processing Society and the Circuits and Systems Society. SiPS' 04 will be held in Austin, Texas on      October 13-15. Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel, Austin, Texas [more info]

2004 IEEE Information Theory Workshop (#9676) – San Antonio
The IEEE Information Theory Society will sponsor the conference entitled "2004 IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW) (#9676)". This conference will be held October 24-29, 2004 in San Antonio, Texas. [more info]  For further information, please contact, Ms. Sonny C. Matous, Texas A&M University, Electrical Engineering Dept., Room 237 WERC, College Station, TX 77843 3128, +1 979 862 8657, +1 979 862 4630 (Fax), sonny@ee.tamu.edu or Conference Services Dept., at IEEE Operations Center at +1 732 562 3878.

2004 IEEE 7th Workshop on Workload Characterization (WWC 2004)" (Meeting #10167) - Austin   

Please be advised that the IEEE Computer Society will sponsor the conference entitled "2004 IEEE 7th Workshop on Workload Characterization

(WWC 2004)" (Meeting #10167).   This conference will be held October 25, 2004 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.

2005 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition - APEC 2005 (#10091)" – Austin

IEEE Industry Applications Society & Power Electronics Society will sponsor the conference entitled "2005 IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference and Exposition - APEC 2005 (#10091)". This conference will be held March 6-10, 2005 in Austin, TX. For further information, please contact: Mr. Jason Lai, +1 540 231 4741, +1 540 231 3362 (Fax), laijs@vt.edu, or Conference Services Dept., at IEEE Operations Center at +1 732 562 3878

 

Important Events and Notes of Interest

Bexar Chapter TSPE October Meeting & Engineering Ethics Course

Speaker:  Jimmy H. Smith, Ph.D., P.E.

Subject:  Engineering Ethics

Date:      October 4, 2004

Time:      Registration & Social Gathering:  11:00 am to 11:30 am,  Meeting: 11:30 am to   1:00 pm

Location:  Villita Assembly Building (City Public Service), NE Corner of S. Presa St. & Villita St., 401 Villita Street, San Antonio, Texas

Cost:  $ 20 for TSPE members,  $ 40 for non-members, (A box lunch will be provided)

RSVP  (Deadline: September 17, 2004) (No shows will be required to pay)

Contact: Carolyn Cornish by email:  ccornish@pape-dawson.com  or phone 210-375-9000 Provide:  Name (Name that will appear on certificate),

               Company, Phone number, Member/Non-Member Status

Speaker:  Dr. Jimmy Smith is a Professor of Civil Engineering at Texas Tech University.  He is a Director of the National Institute for Engineering Ethics and a Director of the Murdough Center for Engineering Professionalism.  Dr. Smith has held the positions of:

       President 1994-1996 - National Institute for Engineering Ethics (NIEE),

       Member - (1993-1998) NSPE Board of Ethical Review,

       State President (94/95) - Texas Society of Professional Engineers (TSPE)

Note:  This meeting will provide you with 1.5 PDH’s which will more than  meet your Ethics requirement for P.E. license renewal.

The Optical Fiber Communication Conference & Exposition (OFC) and the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC) will take place together on March 6-11, 2005 at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, California, USA.  Submissions are currently being accepted for the OFC Technical Program. Click here for more information and to submit your paper online. The deadline for the 35-word abstract and 3-page summary is September 14, 2004 at 12:00 p.m. EDT (16:00 GMT).

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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, T. Scott Atkinson at s.atkinson@ieee.org if you have any thoughts or suggestions. The deadline for submission is the 25th of the month.
 
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John R. Purvis III, P.E.
Technical Team Lead
IBM Global Services - South Server Services Austin
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