The following is a roundup of news and notable developments in electrical engineering and computer or information technology reported during July 2009. Items are excerpted from news releases generated by research universities and government agencies. Highlighted topics include:

1. Energy Secretary Chu Highlights S&T Solutions on Facebook

2. US-China Clean Energy Research Center Announced

3. New DARPA Heads Announced

4. NIST Research Advances Efficiency of Organic Photovoltaic Cells

5. New SunCatcher Power system Unveiled

6. Nanopillars Promise Cheap, Efficient, Flexible Solar Cells

7. New Statistical Technique Improves Precision of Nanotechnology Data

8. A Swiss Army Knife for Nanomedicine Created

9. Chinook Supercomputer Commissioned to Support Environmental and Energy Research

10. Virginia Bioinformatics Institute to Develop Petascale Computer Modeling Capabilities

11. DOE-funded research projects win 46 R&D 100 Awards for 2009

12. New Method Offers Cleaner and More Efficient CO2 Capture

13. New Blue Light Nanocrystals Suggest Lighting Applications

14. U.S. Energy Use Drops in 2008

15. New Study Highlights Rapid Growth of U.S. Wind Power Market

16. New Geothermal Heat Extraction Process to Deliver Clean Power Generation

17. Music Enables Lab-on-a-Chip Device

18. Tool Created to Make Online Personal Data Vanish

19. Federated Cyber Security Program Functions Like a 'Neighborhood Watch'

20. Robot Learns to Smile and Frown

1. Energy Secretary Chu Highlights S&T Solutions on Facebook

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be using Facebook to explain some of the cutting edge research and technology that is laying the foundation for the next generation of clean energy jobs, and answer questions submitted by visitors of the page. He will also offer an inside look at the Obama Administration’s work to ensure America’s leadership in building a clean energy economy and confronting the global climate crisis.

For more information, see: www.facebook.com/stevenchu

2. US-China Clean Energy Research Center Announced

On July 16, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Chinese Minister of Science Wan Gang, and Administrator of National Energy Administration Zhang Guo Bao announced plans to develop a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center. The Center would facilitate joint research and development on clean energy by teams of scientists and engineers from the U.S. and China, as well as serve as a clearinghouse to help researchers in each country. Priority topics to be addressed will initially include building energy efficiency, clean coal including carbon capture and storage, and clean vehicles. The U.S. and China together pledged $15 million to support initial activities.

For more information, see: www.energy.gov/news2009/7640.htm

3. New DARPA Heads Announced

On July 2, the Defense Department announced the selection of Regina E. Dugan as the 19th director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA is the principal agency within the DoD for research, development, and demonstration of concepts, devices, and systems that provide highly advanced military capabilities for the current and future combat force. In this role of developing high-risk, high-payoff projects, DARPA compliments and balances the overall science and technology program of the DoD.

Prior to this appointment, Dugan held several key positions in industry, most recently as president and chief executive officer of RedXDefense, LLC, which she co-founded in 2005, a company that develops defense against explosive threats. She has also served in senior executive positions in several additional companies in roles ranging from global sales and marketing to research and product development.

During her first tour at DARPA from January 1996 to May 2000, Dugan received the program manager of the year award for her leadership of the “Dog’s Nose Program”, which was focused on the development of an advanced, field-portable system for detecting the explosive content of land mines. She has participated in wide-ranging studies for the Defense Science Board, the Army Science Board, the National Research Council and Science Foundation, and currently sits on the Naval Research Advisory Committee and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Science and Technology Panel.

And on July 24, DARPA announced that Kaigham (Ken) Gabriel, Ph.D. would serve as the Agency’s new Deputy Director. Dr. Gabriel was most recently at Akustica, a fabless semiconductor company commercializing micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) sensors for consumer electronics products, where he was its founder, chairman and chief technology officer. From 1992 to 1997, Dr. Gabriel served at DARPA, first to start the agency’s MEMS program and was as Director of the Electronics Technology Office (1996-1997) where he was responsible for the Agency’s electronics technology programs including advanced lithography, electronics packaging, MEMS, optoelectronics, millimeter and microwave integrated circuits, and high-definition displays.

For more information, see: www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12784 and
www.darpa.mil/news/2009/KenGabrielAnnouncement.pdf

4. NIST Research Advances Efficiency of Organic Photovoltaic Cells

A new class of economically viable solar power cells—cheap, flexible and easy to make—has come a step closer to reality as a result of recent work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), where scientists have deepened their understanding of the complex organic films at the heart of the devices.

Organic photovoltaics, which rely on organic molecules to capture sunlight and convert it into electricity, are a hot research area because in principle they have significant advantages over traditional rigid silicon cells. Organic photovoltaics start out as a kind of ink that can be applied to flexible surfaces to create solar cell modules that can be spread over large areas as easily as unrolling a carpet. They’d be much cheaper to make and easier to adapt to a wide variety of power applications, but their market share will be limited until the technology improves. Even the best organic photovoltaics convert less than 6 percent of light into electricity and last only a few thousand hours. “The industry believes that if these cells can exceed 10 percent efficiency and 10,000 hours of life, technology adoption will really accelerate,” says NIST’s David Germack. “But to improve them, there is critical need to identify what’s happening in the material, and at this point, we’re only at the beginning.”

The NIST team has advanced that understanding with their latest effort, which provides a powerful new measurement strategy for organic photovoltaics that reveals ways to control how they form. In the most common class of organic photovoltaics, the “ink” is a blend of a polymer that absorbs sunlight, enabling it to give up its electrons, and ball-shaped carbon molecules called fullerenes that collect electrons. When the ink is applied to a surface, the blend hardens into a film that contains a haphazard network of polymers intermixed with fullerene channels. By applying X-ray absorption measurements to the film interfaces, the team discovered that by changing the nature of the electrode surface, it will repulse fullerenes (like oil repulses water) while attracting the polymer. The electrical properties of the interface also change dramatically. The resultant structure gives the light-generated photocurrent more opportunities to reach the proper electrodes and reduces the accumulation of fullerenes at the film bottom, both of which could improve the photovoltaic’s efficiency or lifetime.

For more information, see: www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/tb2009_0728.htm#solar

5. New SunCatcher Power system Unveiled

Stirling Energy Systems (SES) and Tessera Solar recently unveiled four newly designed solar power collection dishes at Sandia National Laboratories' National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF). Called SunCatchers™, the new dishes have a refined design that will be used in commercial-scale deployments of the units beginning in 2010.

"The four new dishes are the next-generation model of the original SunCatcher system. Six first-generation SunCatchers built over the past several years at the NSTTF have been producing up to 150KW [kilowatts] of grid-ready electrical power during the day," says Chuck Andraka, the lead Sandia project engineer. "Every part of the new system has been upgraded to allow for a high rate of production and cost reduction."

Last year one of the original SunCatchers set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate, toppling the old 1984 record of 29.4.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/dnl-nsp070709.php

6. Nanopillars Promise Cheap, Efficient, Flexible Solar Cells

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have demonstrated a way to fabricate efficient solar cells from low-cost and flexible materials. The new design grows optically active semiconductors in arrays of nanoscale pillars, each a single crystal, with dimensions measured in billionths of a meter.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/dbnl-npc070909.php

7. New Statistical Technique Improves Precision of Nanotechnology Data

A new statistical analysis technique developed by NSF-funded researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology identifies and removes systematic bias, noise and equipment-based artifacts from experimental data and could lead to more precise and reliable measurement of nanomaterials and nanostructures likely to have future industrial applications.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/giot-nst063009.php

8. A Swiss Army Knife for Nanomedicine Created

Nanoparticles are being developed to perform a wide range of medical uses -- imaging tumors, carrying drugs, delivering pulses of heat. Rather than settling for just one of these, researchers at the University of Washington have combined two nanoparticles in one tiny package. The result is the first structure that creates a multipurpose nanotechnology tool for medical imaging and therapy.

"This is the first time that a semiconductor and metal nanoparticles have been combined in a way that preserves the function of each individual component," said Xiaohu Gao, a UW assistant professor of bioengineering.

For more information, see: http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=51016

9. Chinook Supercomputer Commissioned to Support Environmental and Energy Research

The newest supercomputer in town is almost 15 times faster than its predecessor and ready to take on problems in areas such as climate science, hydrogen storage and molecular chemistry. The $21.4 million Chinook supercomputer was built by HP, tested by a variety of researchers, and has now been commissioned for use by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Department of Energy.

Housed at DOE's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory on the PNNL campus in Richland, Washington, Chinook can perform more than 160 trillion calculations per second, ranking it in the top 40 fastest computers in the world. Its predecessor, EMSL's MPP2, could run 11.2 trillion calculations per second.

For more information, including details on access by researchers, see: www.pnl.gov/news/release.asp?id=%20387

10. Virginia Bioinformatics Institute to Develop Petascale Computer Modeling Capabilities

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a four-year, $1,450,000 grant to the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory (NDSSL) at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech and partners to develop petascale computing environments that model billions of individuals in extremely large social and information networks.

The goal of the proposal is to use new computer technology to study events like disease pandemics, financial crises, as well as the spread of opinions, attitudes or social beliefs, through populations on a global scale. Current agent-based computer models can simulate the spread of a disease like influenza through a population the size of the United States. Petascale modeling would make comparable agent-based studies of disease transmission possible for global populations.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/vt-vbi070609.php

11. DOE-funded research projects win 46 R&D 100 Awards for 2009

Energy Department-funded researchers have won 46 of the 100 awards given out this year by R&D Magazine for the most outstanding technology developments with promising commercial potential. These awards highlight some of the technology transfer successes made by the DOE national laboratories. This year, researchers from 12 of the 17 DOE National Laboratories as well as the Nevada Test Site received awards in areas such as energy, national security and basic scientific applications.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/ddoe-drp072409.php

12. New Method Offers Cleaner and More Efficient CO2 Capture

A Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher has developed a screening method that would use ionic liquids -- a special type of molten salt that becomes liquid under the boiling point of water (100 degrees Celsius) -- to separate carbon dioxide from its source, making it a cleaner, more viable and stable method than what is currently available.

There are major efforts to reduce CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel, but before it can be sequestered, it must first be separated from its source, a step known as "capture." This new technique could significantly enhance the efficiency of the CO2 capture process. Currently, the few coal plants with commercial CO2 capture capability all use processes based on chemical absorption with monoethanolamine (MEA), a general-purpose solvent developed by chemists some 75 years ago. Unfortunately, it is non-selective, corrosive, requires the use of large equipment, and effective only under low to moderate partial pressures of CO2. But the new system overcomes many of these shortcomings. Chemists recently became interested in ionic liquids because they are solvents with almost no vapor pressure, and do not evaporate, even under high temperature conditions.

For more information, see: https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2009/NR-09-07-04.html

13. New Blue Light Nanocrystals Suggest Lighting Applications

Berkeley Lab researchers have produced non-toxic magnesium oxide nanocrystals that efficiently emit blue light and could also play a role in long-term storage of carbon dioxide, a potential means of tempering the effects of global warming.

In its bulk form, magnesium oxide is a cheap, white mineral used in applications ranging from insulating cables and crucibles to preventing sweaty-palmed rock climbers from losing their grip. Using an organometallic chemical synthesis route, scientists at the Molecular Foundry have created nanocrystals of magnesium oxide whose size can be adjusted within just a few nanometers. And unlike their bulk counterpart, the nanocrystals glow blue when exposed to ultraviolet light.

“We’ve discovered a fundamentally new, unconventional mechanism for nicely controlling the size of these nanocrystals, and realized we had an intriguing and surprising candidate for optical applications,” said Delia Milliron, Facility Director of the Inorganic Nanostructures Facility at Berkeley Lab’s nanoscience research center, the Molecular Foundry. “This efficient, bright blue luminescence could be an inexpensive, attractive alternative in applications such as bio-imaging or solid-state lighting.”

Unlike conventional incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, solid-state lighting makes use of light-emitting semiconductor materials-in general, red, green and blue emitting materials are combined to create white light. However, efficient blue light emitters are difficult to produce, suggesting these magnesium oxide nanocrystals could be a bright candidate for lighting that consumes less energy and has a longer lifespan.

For more information, see: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/feature-stories/2009/07/21/blue-light-nanocrystals/

14. U.S. Energy Use Drops in 2008

According to a recent analysis by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007. The nation used less coal and petroleum during the same time frame and only slightly increased its natural gas consumption. Geothermal energy use remained the same.

Total estimated U.S. energy usage in 2008 was 99.2 quadrillion BTUs ("quads"), down from 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007. Energy use in the industrial and transportation sectors declined by 1.17 and 0.9 quads respectively, while commercial and residential use slightly climbed. The drop in transportation and industrial use - which are both heavily dependent on petroleum - can be attributed to a spike in oil prices in summer 2008.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/dlnl-ueu072009.php

15. New Study Highlights Rapid Growth of U.S. Wind Power Market

For the fourth consecutive year, the U.S. was home to the fastest-growing wind power market in the world in 2008, according to a report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). Specifically, U.S. wind power capacity additions increased by 60 percent in 2008, representing a $16 billion investment in new wind projects. “At this pace, wind is on a path to becoming a significant contributor to the U.S. power mix,” notes report author Ryan Wiser, of Berkeley Lab. Wind projects accounted for 42% of all new electric generating capacity added in the U.S. in 2008, and wind now delivers nearly 2% of the nation’s electricity supply.

For more information, see: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-releases/2009/07/16/new-wind-power-market/

16. New Geothermal Heat Extraction Process to Deliver Clean Power Generation

A new method for capturing significantly more heat from low-temperature geothermal resources holds promise for generating virtually pollution-free electrical energy. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will determine if their innovative approach can safely and economically extract and convert heat from vast untapped geothermal resources.
The goal is to enable power generation from low-temperature geothermal resources at an economical cost. In addition to being a clean energy source without any greenhouse gas emissions, geothermal is also a steady and dependable source of power.

"By the end of the calendar year, we plan to have a functioning bench-top prototype generating electricity," predicts PNNL Laboratory Fellow Pete McGrail. "If successful, enhanced geothermal systems like this could become an important energy source." A technical and economic analysis conducted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that enhanced geothermal systems could provide 10 percent of the nation's overall electrical generating capacity by 2050.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/dnnl-ngh071609.php

17. Music Enables Lab-on-a-Chip Device

Music, rather than electromechanical valves, can drive experimental samples through a lab-on-a-chip in a new system developed at the University of Michigan. This development could significantly simplify the process of conducting experiments in microfluidic devices.

For more information, see: www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=7247

18. Tool Created to Make Online Personal Data Vanish

Computers have made it virtually impossible to leave the past behind. College Facebook posts or pictures can resurface during a job interview. A lost cell phone can expose personal photos or text messages. A legal investigation can subpoena the entire contents of a home or work computer, uncovering incriminating, inconvenient or just embarrassing details from the past.

Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a way to make such information expire. After a set time period, electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages would automatically self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all Web sites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers. Not even the sender could retrieve them.

"If you care about privacy, the Internet today is a very scary place," said UW computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno. "If people understood the implications of where and how their e-mail is stored, they might be more careful or not use it as often."

The team of UW computer scientists developed a prototype system called Vanish that can place a time limit on text uploaded to any Web service through a Web browser. After a set time text written using Vanish will, in essence, self-destruct.

For more information, see: http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=50973

19. Federated Cyber Security Program Functions Like a 'Neighborhood Watch'

U.S. Department of Energy laboratories fight off millions of cyber attacks every year, but a near real-time dialog between these labs about this hostile activity has never existed – until now.

Scientists at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory have devised a program that allows for Cyber Security defense systems to communicate when attacked and transmit that information to cyber systems at other institutions in the hopes of strengthening the overall cyber security posture of the complex.

"The Federated Model for Cyber Security acts as a virtual neighborhood watch program. If one institution is attacked; secure and timely communication to others in the Federation will aide in protecting them from that same attack through active response," cyber security officer Michael Skwarek said.

Prior to the development of the Federated Model for Cyber Security, the exchange of hostile activity was solely on the shoulders of the human element. In cyber attacks, every second counts and the quicker that such information can be securely shared, will assist in strengthening others against similar attacks. With millions of cyber security probes a day, the human element will not be successful alone.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/dnl-adp071609.php

20. Robot Learns to Smile and Frown

A hyper-realistic Einstein robot at the University of California, San Diego, learned to smile and make facial expressions through a process of self-guided learning. The UC San Diego researchers used machine learning to "empower" their robot to learn to make realistic facial expressions. "As far as we know, no other research group has used machine learning to teach a robot to make realistic facial expressions," said Tingfan Wu, computer science Ph.D. student, UC San Diego.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/uoc--rlt070809.php

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