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

1. Random Antenna Arrays Boost Emergency Communications

2. New Computer Science Teaching Method Emphasizes Classroom Collaboration

3. San Diego Supercomputer Center Begins “Cloud Computing” Research

4. Penn State Institute to Deploy Terascale Computing System

5. NIST Updates Recommendations for Protecting Wireless, Remote Access Data

6. Researchers Demonstrate Novel ‘Quantum Data Buffering’ Scheme

7. Quantum Dance Could Revolutionize Computing

8. Livermore (LLNL) Partners With Siemens on Modelling to Improve Wind Energy Efficiency

9. Report Documents Reductions in Cost of Installed Solar Photovoltaic Systems

10. Study Assesses Potential For Biofuels to Reduce Gasoline Dependence

11. Duke Study Critiques Corn-Based Biofuels

12. Researchers Pinpoint Means to Increase Magnetic Response of Ferromagnetic Semiconductors

13. New Nanoscale Self-Assembly Method Could Transform Data Storage

14. Researchers Discover Potential On-Off Switch for Nanoelectronics

15. Plasmonic Nanoswitches Could Revolutionize Computing

16. NanoFab User Facility Adds New Capabilities

17. New Nano-Ink Has Applications in Electronics

18. Nanorobot Manipulates World’s Tiniest Particles

19. Semiconductor Defect Scanning Technology Helps Save Vision

20. Robotic Therapy May Reduce Disability in Stroke Victims

1. Random Antenna Arrays Boost Emergency Communications

First responders could boost their radio communications quickly at a disaster site by setting out just four extra transmitters in a random arrangement to significantly increase the signal power at the receiver, according to theoretical analyses, simulations and proof-of-concept experiments performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to be published in a forthcoming issue of IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation.

The NIST experiments covered a range of communications scenarios, using up to eight transmitters at different locations as well as objects such as concrete blocks that scatter radio waves. Across all experimental scenarios, researchers observed at least a 7 decibel median power gain — roughly a five-fold increase in the median received power — when splitting the power among four in-phase transmitting antennas, compared to using just a single transmitter. More important, researchers observed a 2.5 to 4-fold increase in the median signal at the radio receiver when using four in-phase transmitters instead of four randomly phased transmitters.

Project leader Chris Holloway envisions portable transmitter devices shaped like hockey pucks, incorporating a small antenna and phase-shifting electronics, which could be thrown on the ground or stuck on a wall with the antenna always upright. “The idea is that someone, or even a robot, would have a bag of these things and would drop them off as they go through a building,” Holloway says.

For more information, see: www.nist.gov/public_affairs/techbeat/tb2009_0224.htm#antenna

2. New Computer Science Teaching Method Emphasizes Classroom Collaboration

Computer science faculty at Washington University in St. Louis are exposing their undergraduate students to learning in ways that prepare them for interaction in the real work place. The Active Learning model replaces the tradition lecture-based approach to classroom instruction.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/wuis-ndi022409.php

3. San Diego Supercomputer Center Begins “Cloud Computing” Research

Researchers from the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, have been awarded a two-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to explore new ways for academic researchers to manage extremely large data sets hosted on massive, Internet-based commercial computer clusters, or what have become known as computing "clouds."

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uoc—sds021709.php

4. Penn State Institute to Deploy Terascale Computing System

Penn State's Institute for CyberScience will target large-scale modeling, simulation and data analysis with a mew terascale advanced computing system, funded by the National Science Foundation's Major Research Instrumentation Program.

The instrument will enable researchers from seven disciplines — biological, materials and social sciences, computer and information science, engineering, education and geosciences — to perform virtual experiments to address open problems in their disciplines. Research projects include predictive network modeling of infectious disease dynamics, developing new piezoelectric materials, designing next-generation computer systems, modeling human interactions to promote learning in virtual communities and developing a critical zone environmental observatory. Despite their diversity, these projects share computational scalability challenges that must be addressed to enable scientific advances that often depend on solving large problems representing a sufficient level of detail and complexity. The instrument will also enable activities to promote technology transfer to industrial partners and provide training and outreach to enhance the diversity of the computational science talent pool.

For more information, see: www.research.psu.edu/ics/research/mriproject.html

5. NIST Updates Recommendations for Protecting Wireless, Remote Access Data

Telecommuting has freed many to work far from the confines of the office via laptop, but the price of working while sipping a latte at that sunny café is the danger that a public network will not keep the data that passes through it safe. Now, to combat the risk inherent in remote access, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has updated its guide on maintaining data security while teleworking.

The revised guide offers advice for protecting the wide variety of private and mobile devices from threats that have appeared since the first edition appeared in August 2002. Together with the preponderance of dangerous malware on the Web, the vulnerability of wireless transmissions from mobile devices has created dramatic new security challenges.

While intended primarily for U.S. federal government agencies, the guide has been written in broad language in order to be helpful to any group that engages in telework. Formally titled Special Publication 800-46 Revision 1, Guide to Enterprise Telework and Remote Access Security, it is available online at: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-46Rev1/Draft-SP800-46r1.pdf or at http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsDrafts.html

6. Researchers Demonstrate Novel ‘Quantum Data Buffering’ Scheme

Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland (UM) have announced that they can cache sizable amounts information in a “quantum buffer” without disturbing the fragile entanglement of quantum states at the heart of the strange world of quantum computing. Such a buffer could be used to control the data flow inside a yet-to-be-built quantum computer that theoretically could solve problems unreachable by the best conventional computers.

For more information, see: www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/databuffering_02-12-09.html

7. Quantum Dance Could Revolutionize Computing

An international team of scientists, led by a Princeton University group, has observed an exciting and strange behavior in electrons' spin within a new material that could be harnessed to transform computing and electronics.

"We believe this discovery is not only an advancement in the fundamental physics of quantum systems but also could lead to significant advances in electronics, computing and information science," said Zahid Hasan, an assistant professor of physics at Princeton, who led the international collaboration that included scientists from the United States, Switzerland and Germany.

Theorists have long predicted that atoms placed in certain configurations would trigger electrons to behave in odd "quantum" ways. The Princeton-led team has been searching for a material that would produce these conditions. In the Feb. 13 issue of Science, the team has reported it witnessed the exotic behavior in a carefully constructed crystal made of an antimony alloy laced with bismuth.

For more information, see: www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S23/49/78A93

8. Livermore (LLNL) Partners With Siemens on Modeling to Improve Wind Energy Efficiency

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has signed an agreement with Siemens Energy Inc. to provide high-resolution atmospheric modeling capabilities to improve the efficiency of wind farm sites, turbine design and wind farm operations.

Accurate and timely forecasts of power availability will enable turbine owners and operators to generate optimal bids on wind turbine production and in turn maximize both financial benefit and grid support,” said Henrik Stiesdal, Siemens chief technology officer for wind power generation. “We look forward to this cooperative agreement that will help us provide a clean energy source for future generations.”

For more information, see: https://publicaffairs.llnl.gov/news/news_releases/2009/NR-09-02-08.html

9. Report Documents Reductions in Cost of Installed Solar Photovoltaic Systems

A new study on the installed costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the U.S. shows that the average cost of these systems declined significantly from 1998 to 2007, but remained relatively flat during the last two years of this period.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) who conducted the study say that the overall decline in the installed cost of solar PV systems is mostly the result of decreases in nonmodule costs, such as the cost of labor, marketing, overhead, inverters, and the balance of systems.

For more information, see: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-releases/2009/02/19/solar-system-cost-report/

10. Study Assesses Potential For Biofuels to Reduce Gasoline Dependence

According to a study by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corp., plant and forestry waste and dedicated energy crops could sustainably replace nearly a third of total gasoline use by the year 2030.

Researchers assessed the feasibility, implications, limitations, and enablers of annually producing 90 billion gallons of ethanol — sufficient to replace more than 60 billion of the estimated 180 billion gallons of gasoline expected to be used annually by 2030. Ninety billion gallons a year exceeds the U.S. Department of Energy's goal for ethanol production established in 2006.

The "90 Billion Gallon Study" assumes 75 billion gallons would be ethanol made from nonfood cellulosic feedstocks and 15 billion gallons from corn-based ethanol. The study examined four sources of biofuels: agricultural residue, such as corn stover and wheat straw; forest residue; dedicated energy crops, including switchgrass; and short rotation woody crops, such as willow and poplar trees. It examines the costs of producing, harvesting, storing and transporting these sources to newly built biorefineries.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/dnl-bcp021009.php

11. Duke Study Critiques Corn-Based Biofuels

To avoid creating greenhouse gases, it makes more sense using today's technology to leave land unfarmed in conservation reserves than to plow it up for corn to make biofuel, according to a comprehensive Duke University-led study.

"Converting set-asides to corn-ethanol production is an inefficient and expensive greenhouse gas mitigation policy that should not be encouraged until ethanol-production technologies improve," the study's authors reported in the March edition of the research journal Ecological Applications.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-03/du-scc030209.php

12. Researchers Pinpoint Means to Increase Magnetic Response of Ferromagnetic Semiconductors

When squeezed, electrons increase their ability to move around. In compounds such as semiconductors and electrical insulators, such squeezing can dramatically change the electrical- and magnetic-properties. Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have manipulated electron mobility and pinpointed the mechanism controlling the strength of magnetic interactions — and hence the material's magnetic ordering temperature.

"Manipulation of strain adds a new dimension to the design of novel devices based on injection, transport, and detection of high spin-polarized currents in magnetic/semiconductor hybrid structures", according to Argonne Lab physicist Daniel Haskel.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/dnl-asp022509.php

13. New Nanoscale Self-Assembly Method Could Transform Data Storage

An innovative and easily implemented technique developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and UMass Amherst could soon open doors to dramatic improvements in the data storage capacity of electronic media. The novel method enables the self-assembly of nanoscale elements in precise patterns over large surfaces.

"I expect that the new method we developed will transform the microelectronic and storage industries, and open up vistas for entirely new applications," said co-lead investigator Thomas Russell, director of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UMass Amherst. "This work could possibly be translated into the production of more energy-efficient photovoltaic cells, for instance."

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uoc—nmo021309.php

14. Researchers Discover Potential On-Off Switch for Nanoelectronics

Berkeley Lab researchers funded by the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation have shown that electrical resistance through a molecular junction — a nanometer scale circuit element that contacts gold atoms with a single molecule — can be turned "on" and "off" simply by pushing and pulling the junction. This feature has potential for being used as a switch in future nanoscale electronic devices.

For more information, see: http://newscenter.lbl.gov/press-releases/2009/03/02/researchers-discover-a-potential-on-off-switch-for-nanoelectronics/

15. Plasmonic Nanoswitches Could Revolutionize Computing

Plasmonics may pave the way for the next generation of computers that operate faster and store more information than electronically-based systems and are smaller than optically-based systems, according to a Penn State engineer who has developed a plasmonic switch.

"If plasmonics are realized, the future will have circuits as small as the current electronic ones with a capacity a million times better," said Tony Jun Huang, James Henderson assistant professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics. "Plasmonics combines the speed and capacity of photonic — light based — circuits with the small size of electronic circuits."

Currently, electronic circuits can be made very small, but they are limited by their capacity and the speed that information can travel in the circuits. Optical circuits send information at the speed of light, but the size is large, limited by the light's wavelength. Plasmonics combines the best of electronic and optical circuits and can transmit electrons and light at the same time using the surface of the device.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/ps-mmd021109.php

16. NanoFab User Facility Adds New Capabilities

The NanoFab (nanoscale fabrication facility) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is expanding its capabilities to serve researchers, academic institutions and businesses that specialize in developing and bringing to market nanotechnology-related products and processes. Managed by NIST’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST), the national user facility is placing a second high-voltage large-field electron-beam lithography system into operation in April, and also has added several other new state-of-the-art instruments for fabricating nanoscale devices and making measurements. The center recently added a Heidelberg DWL-66FS laser pattern generator for maskless lithography, an Oxford FlexALRPT for atomic layer deposition, and two new ICP reactive ion etch systems.

The CNST’s mission is to increase U.S. innovation and competitiveness in nanoscale measurement and fabrication. Its NanoFab now houses more than 50 specialized instruments that are available for use by outside organizations.

For more information on the facility, see: http://cnst.nist.gov/nanofab/nanofab.html

17. New Nano-Ink Has Applications in Electronics

A new ink composed of silver nanoparticles, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, can be used in electronic and optoelectronic applications to create flexible, stretchable and spanning microelectrodes that carry signals from one circuit element to another. The printed microelectrodes can withstand repeated bending and stretching with minimal change in their electrical properties.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/uoia-nsi021109.php

18. Nanorobot Manipulates World’s Tiniest Particles

Chemists at New York University and China's Nanjing University have developed a two-armed nanorobotic device that can manipulate molecules within a device built from DNA. The device is Described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology, the device enables the creation of new DNA structures, potentially serving as a factory for assembling the building blocks of new materials.

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/nyu-cct021309.php

19. Semiconductor Defect Scanning Technology Helps Save Vision

In the blink of an eye, people at risk of becoming blind can now be screened for eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration.

Using a technology originally developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory to understand semiconductor defects, three locations in Memphis have been equipped with digital cameras that take pictures of the retina. Those images are relayed to a center where they are analyzed and the patient knows in minutes whether he or she needs additional medical attention.

"Once we've taken pictures of the eyes, we transmit that information to our database, where it is compared to thousands of images of known retinal disease states," said Ken Tobin, who led the ORNL team that developed the technology. "From there, the computer system is able to determine whether the patient passes the screening or it provides a follow-up plan that includes seeing an ophthalmologist."

For more information, see: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-02/drnl-oup021709.php

20. Robotic Therapy May Reduce Disability in Stroke Victims

Robot-assisted therapy may help stroke patients attain gains in their physical abilities long after the stroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2009. Researchers assessed patients after two weeks of therapy that included 24 hours of hand-wrist exercises using robotic devices and virtual-reality video-game playing, and again one month later.

For more information, see: http://americanheart.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=662

 

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