The Electronic Newsletter of the IEEE Toronto Section - the latest news about upcoming events and the people that make them happen - Section and Chapter meetings, workshops, conferences, and other events of interest occuring in Toronto and surounding areas.   Posted every month.   Now formatted for portrait-orientation printing.
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Upcoming Chapter/Group Meetings Aug 14, 2008 at 5:30 p.m.   Janet Barclay presents "Getting Organized Once and for All," organized by our Women in Engineering (WIE) Affinity Group Click for details.Registration required. Sep 11, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.   Dr. Daniel Fischer, Senior Engineer, Kinectrics presents, "Artificial Intelligence Stops the Car (so you don’t have to)," organized by our Signals and Computational Intelligence Joint Chapter Click for details. Sep 18, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.   Brian Savaria, Manager Codes, Standards, Regulatory Affairs, Eaton Corporation, Canadian Operations presents, "The Threat to Canada’s Electrical Safety," organized by our Industry Applications Chapter. Click for details. Sep 25, 2008 at 6:00 p.m.  Dr. Bogdan Kasztenny, FIEEE, System Engineering Manager, General Electric presents "Industrial Revolution for Protection and Control Systems in Electric Utilities," organized by our Power Engineering Chapter. Click for details. details. Registration required Member News Record number of Toronto Section members nominated as Senior Members Under the leadership of Dr. Alexei Botchkarev (Alex Bot)- the Toronto Section Chair and the section's dedicated volunteers staged an "On-the-Spot" SM elevation to identify potential Senior Member candidates from the technical chapters.Suprisingly, there was a phenominal response from members that exceeded the section's expectations and at a certain point even overwhelmed the resources. Never the less the event resulted in in a record number of 37 elevations - the largest in Canada,in a single session.The Section wishes to thank all the volunteers involved and Congratulate all the Newly Elevated Senior Members who make our section very proud. Some of the newly elevated members biography is listed below René Midence is the Utility Market Manager of RuggedCom Inc. a leading manufacturer of industrially hardened communications technology for mission-critical applications in harsh environments. For over 25 years, Mr. Midence has been involved in the design and commissioning of power substations and power plants, including Protection and Control, SCADA, Substation Automation and Substation LAN systems. Prior to joining RuggedCom Inc. Mr. Midence worked for GE Mulitlin over 8 years as Senior Technical Support and Applications Engineer and 2 years as Product Manager responsible for Industrial products. Mr. Midence is member of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG10 and the UCA International Users Group where he is the Marketing Chair of the IEC61850 Community. He is also member of the Advisory Committee of DistribuTECH 2009 and Utility Products Conference and Exhibition. Mr. Midence graduated from the University of Honduras in 1983 with a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Electrical and Industrial Engineering. Dr. Charles E. Johnson, who has recently been elevated to Senior Membership in the Toronto Section of IEEE, now provides consulting services in both the U.S. and Canada on issues related to rates and ratemaking for electric utilities. Dr. Johnson has performed economic and engineering analyses related to utility service for over 30 years. These analyses have been performed for Public Service Commissions and consumer groups ranging from U.S. Department of Energy and Air Force facilities to Community Action Programs for low-income households. He has testified as an expert witness in scores of cases in several dozen jurisdictions in the U.S. The topics of these testimonies included allocation of costs, cost of capital, rate design, accounting issues, and depreciation studies. These were performed for electric, natural gas, water, and telephone utilities and insurance companies. He has led groups of engineers and analysts in reviewing the utility services for several major U.S.D.O.E. Research Laboratories and assisted the Department in implementing aspects of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978. He was active in assisting Public Service Commissions, State Legislatures and others during the period that electric deregulation was occurring. His involvement in utility regulation and deregulation followed a dozen years teaching mathematics at U.S. universities, including Ohio State, Kansas State and Wichita State. Bruno Korst (M.Eng, P.Eng., SMIEEE) has graduated in 1992 from Faculdade de Engenharia Industrial - FEI, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with the title of Electrical Engineer. He then pursued a Master of Engineering degree (with thesis) from Carleton University, specializing in Signal Processing for Acoustics. He has worked as an engineer in Canada, and has taught Electrical Engineering at the Universidade de Brasília, in Brazil, prior to becoming a staff member at the University of Toronto where he currently works as the manager of the Undergraduate Teaching Laboratories for ECE. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science (Calgary), and a graduate specialization in Marketing (FGV - Brazil). He is also a licenced Professional Engineer, and has a strong interest in Engineering Education. Aside from engineering, he is interested in intelligence and international conflict, and volunteers at the cardiac unit of the Toronto General Hospital. Dr. Marilyn T. Welles, who has recently been elevated to Senior Membership in the Toronto Section of IEEE, is a Systems Engineering and Management Consultant, specializing in review of interfaces between modules and subsystems, especially those from differing engineering disciplines or cultures. Dr. Welles, before becoming an independent contractor, was an employee of Booz, Allen and Hamilton, the MITRE Corp, the Logistics Management Institute, International Business Machines Corp, and Bell Telephone Laboratories (in its pre-Lucent days). She has taught courses in and been track chair for programs in Engineering Management, Business Management, Operations Research, and Information Technology at a variety of colleges and universities, including The George Washington University, the University of Maryland, Marymount University, Weber State University, and Shenandoah University. Her doctoral dissertation dealt with the effects of various inborn personality characteristics on the Human/Machine Interface. For many years she was Co-Chair of the East-West Human Computer Interface Conference, held each summer in Moscow and Lenningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia. Milos R. Popovic received the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1996, and the Dipl. Electrical Engineer degree from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1990. Dr. Popovic is Toronto Rehab Chair in Spinal Cord Injury Research. He is also an Associate Professor in the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, and Senior Scientist and the Activity Team Leader at Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, both institutions located in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Popovic joined the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering and the Toronto Rehab in 2001. From 1997 until 2001 he was leading the Rehabilitation Engineering Team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the Paraplegic Center of the University Hospital Balgrist, both in Zurich, Switzerland. From 1996 until 1997, he worked for AlliedSignal Aerospace Canada Inc. in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Popovic's fields of expertise are functional electrical stimulation, neuro-rehabilitation, modeling and control of linear and non-linear dynamic systems, robotics, power systems, signal processing, and safety analysis. His interests are in the areas of neuro-rehabilitation, physiological control systems, assistive technology, and brain machine interfaces. In 1997, together with Dr. Thierry Keller he received the Swiss National Science Foundation Technology Transfer Award - 1st place. In 2008, Dr. Popovic received Research and Development Award from the Professional Engineers of Ontario and Ontario Society of Professional Engineers. He is also one of the co-founders of the Canadian National Spinal Cord Injury Conference established in 2004. Mike (Zhong Bing) Shen (Senior Member'2008) was born in Jiangsu, China, in 1972. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from Jiangsu University, Jiangsu, China, in 1994, and the MASc degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, in 2006. His research interests are power system protection, control and telecommunication, distributed generation, SCADA system, metering system, power quality, power electronics, electrical control, electromechanical systems. Mr. Shen has over 12 years of professional experiences in Electrical Engineering from Electrical Automation, Mechatronics, AC/DC Motor Drives, Power Electronics, Substation Automation, SCADA Systems, Power System Protection and Control, Distributed Generation, Demand-side Management, Renewable Energy, Electric System Modeling and Simulations. Currently, He is employed at Wardrop Engineering Inc. as an electrical engineer in Mississauga, Ontario. He is also a licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario. Prof. Roy Ng, CISA, PMP, SCPM(Stanford), SMIEEE, has over 20 years of communication networks and IT management experience in executive management, consulting, information security infrastructure and network engineering. Prior to joining Ryerson University, he had held various senior management positions including Area Vice President and Managing Director in Avaya Canada Inc; Director, Consulting Services for CGI. In the area of information security and project management, he holds professional designations as Certified Information Systems Security Professional, Certified Information Systems Auditor, Project Management Professional and Stanford Certified Project Manager from Stanford University. A member of the Ryerson Cyber Crime and Privacy Research Institute, he is also a member of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association in Ontario as well as a Senior Member with the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers. A frequent panel speaker and conference presenter, his research interest includes Information Assurance and Security in the area of eHealth, corporate governance, privacy and network communications. Dr.Yinhua Guo received his BSc and MSc degrees in 1984 and 1987 respectively, both in power engineering from Wuhan University, China. He obtained his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Manchester, U.K. in 1996. Dr Guo is a senior engineer at the Ontario Grid Control Centre, Hydro One Networks, responsible for the maintenance and support of advanced power system applications of the network management system. Prior to this role, he was a power system specialist with the Energy Control Systems division of SNC-Lavalin ECS Inc/CAE Electronics Ltd from 1996 to 2004, concentrating on the design, development, integration and field commissioning of various power system applications for the EMS/DMS product. He was a faculty member at Wuhan University from 1987 to 1993, conducting teaching and research in the area of power systems. Dr Guo has a broad interest in power system modelling and analysis, power system operations, control and optimization. He is a NERC certified reliability coordinator operator. Janaki Balakrishnan is an experienced Professional Engineer (Electrical), over 25years, as Engineer, Researcher, Educator and Leader in the electrical utility industry and Manager and Supervisor in other utility industry, customer and consumer service businesses, consulting engineering and academia. Supervisor/Leader over seven (7) years as electro/mechanical engineer in utility industry, design, construction, commissioning, distribution, operation and maintenance, field services including revenue metering, rates and regulation etc.. Well trained manager of finances, human resources, projects and programs. Having obtained M.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Toronto, Ontario, June 1987, Janaki also became a licensed Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario in 1987. She completed her B.Sc. (Hons) in Electrical Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka in 1975. In recognition of her outstanding performance in research and community contribution, she has been awarded with Honorary Doctorate by International University for Martial Arts, Sri Lanka in affiliation with the Open International University for Complimentary Medicines, USA and New International Karate Organization, Japan in March, 2008. Janaki is employed by Toronto Hydro for the last 15 years and currently engaged in Distributed Generation projects. She also gained experience with consulting engineering firms in electrical designs of buildings. Further, she taught at Seneca College and Centennial College a few semesters. She also gained several years of experience working in Sri Lanka. She is presently the President of TDND Canada, an international development organization that aims for sustainable development in developing countries and natural disaster or conflict affected countries. Upcoming Conferences All IEEE Conferences in Canada - please use this link. Upcoming Courses "Overhead Conductor Tension and Sags, and Guying of Poles" by Wallas H. Khella, Ph.D., P.Eng. — Nov. 3 & 4, 2008 This one and a half day seminar is designed for Engineers, Technologists and Technicians working for electrical utilities, communication organizations and consulting engineering firms dealing with the design of new or upgrading of overhead distribution lines. The seminar will outline the physical and mechanical characteristics of the overhead line components and shows how to apply these to design pole lines that meets the Regulation. Reference Standards and applicable specifications will be given. Each participant will receive a comprehensive set of seminar notes, which can be used as reference design manual. Various Excel spreadsheets will be demonstrated to assist in determining the guying/anchoring requirements to meet the required Grades of Construction. Click for details (hosted on the S&C website). Read More.... For more information on the IEEE Wireless Communication Engineering Technologies Certification Program (IEEE WCET) contact: Jean Niblett, IEEE Communications Society, 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Phone: (212) 705-8913. E-mail: j.niblett@comsoc.org or visit www.ieee-wcet.org. Section News Sanam Sadr & Marjan M.Kusha nominated as WIE Vice chair & WIE secretary Sanam Sadr received her BSc. in Electrical Engineering from University of Tehran, Iran and her MASc. in Electrical Engineering from Ryerson University, Canada in 2003 and 2007 respectively. She has been with Wireless Networks & Communications Research (WINCORE) Lab at Ryerson since 2005 working on optimization techniques applied for adaptive resource allocation in OFDMA systems. Marjan M.Kusha received her Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Ryerson University in 2007. She is currently pursuing her Master of Engineering degree under supervision of Dr. Sri Krishnan as a member of signal analysis research group at Ryerson University. Her research interests lies on the areas of biomedical signal processing, image compression and biomedical image segmentation. Marjan is currently working on ECG feature extraction and optimization of Ventricular Fibrillation detection algorithms used in automated external defibrillators. respectively. The section congratulates and welcomes them to their new role. Tesla, An Evening With Genius – Nov. 6–8, 2008 Play organized by: Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Toronto Section He discovered alternating current, wireless and radio. And no, he is not Marconi. In fact, in 1943, the Supreme Court granted full rights to Tesla for the invention of radio, nullifying the claims of Marchese Gugliemo Marconi who had patented a two-tuned-circuit design and a more practical four-tuned-circuit modeled after Tesla's. Marconi's patent on the invention of radio was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court because Tesla's work predated it (Case #369, 6/21/43). Nikola Tesla is known as the forgotten genius although we know him too well through his inventions. In a unique event, IEEE Toronto Section and PEO have organized an evening with Tesla! This one-man play about Tesla's life is written by J. Michael Newlight and Frank Tabbita, with Frank Tabbita as Nikola Tesla. Tickets are available on www.ticketmaster.com. Thursday, November 6th at 8:00 pm - $20 Friday, November 7th at 8:00 pm - $25 Saturday, November 8th at 8:00 pm - $25 Students - $15 on any day The above prices include all applicable taxes and fees. For more information visit the event web site: http://www.vasicweb.com/tesla/ IEEE News For more IEEE news from the IEEE Newsroom - Click here. And check out the IEEE Institute Magazine here. Membership Future Senior Members of the IEEE Toronto Section   Have you been in professional practice for at least ten years and have shown significant performance over a period of at least five of those years?   You should be an IEEE Senior Member.   Need help in obtaining your three references?   We will help you - just contact Dimitri , our membership chair.   Please click this link to find out the advantages, the requirements, and an explanation of the process including key links to apply online. Volunteers Volunteering a few hours a month is a very rewarding experience - we have a great group of about 45 volunteers who contribute to the smooth running of our Section - by distributing the workload over many Section members, the individual load is kept small. If you are interested, please contact our Section Chair Alex Bot at this Advertising For Advertisting in the annual printed edition of IEEE Toronto Section - The Annual Connection please contact the Editor. The IEEE Toronto Section accepts advertising for items deemed to be of interest to our members. If you would like to advertise in our newsletter, please contact the editor. Please send any news item submissions, comments, suggestions, concerns to the editor before the 28th at this email . Thank you for reading - Naresh Kurada,MSEE,P.Eng., (Editor). Subscribe or Unsubscribe IEEE Toronto E-News is sent monthly to all members of the IEEE Toronto Section and to a separate mailing list of non-members who have elected to subscribe (except those who have opted out) and any one else who has subscribed.   Since we are now using a new IEEE service, called e-Notice, our member mailing list is created each month using the on-line membership data base. IEEE Toronto Section Members   If you receive two copies, please cancel the non-member one by using the linked web page and completing the simple web form to "Unsubscribe".   If you do not wish to receive these newsletters, use this link to cancel your subscription. All Others (members of other sections and non-members)   If you wish to opt in or out, please use the linked web page and complete the simple web form. Home Page: http://toronto.ieee.ca by webmaster