Hear world opinion leaders and learn what they feel is our future.
Personally meet each of them if you buy Patron Level tickets!

IEEE Members, don’t miss this one!
You can buy tickets at incredible discounts and
experience four unforgettable evenings with world level opinion shapers!

* * *

As an engineer, learning never ends, and knowledge is power. Now, through the 2012 International Speakers Series, you’ll have a first-hand opportunity to connect with four of the most powerful world-shapers of the 21st Century. Hear, first-hand, how these movers and shakers continue to enlighten, challenge, and shake us to the core. IEEE Membership has its privileges!

We have made arrangements with this prestigious organization to offer members of the Oregon Section an opportunity to hear these four world-class speakers, and at significantly discounted prices. All lectures will be held at the Rose Schnitzer Auditorium in downtown Portland. The first lecture, with Jim Lehrer, is on February 3, 2012; the fourth, with Sima Samar, concludes the series on April 27, 2012. You’ll not only hear these world-renowned speakers, but for those who obtain Patron Level tickets, you’ll also have the opportunity to meet with each of them after the lecture at a small, specially arranged catered reception, and ask any questions that come to mind!

This is truly an opportunity you don’t want to miss, and at pricing way below that of non-members! Read below for all the sign-up information you need! Hope to see you there! If you have any questions, please call me at 432-559-7013 (cell).

Sincerely,

Christopher Jacobs, PhD EE Senior Member
IEEE Oregon Section Public Relations and Event Coordinator

2012 International Speaker Series

Every year the International Speaker Series features prominent national and international figures who address the most significant issues of our time. The Series was inaugurated in 2000 to celebrate the Council’s 50th Anniversary. Since its inception, the Series has become the nation’s premier speaker series focusing on international discussion and education.

Politics and Principles: America and the World in 2012

In this election year, International Speaker Series presenters will examine the core principles and challenges that define America’s place in the world. What does America stand for? What should our role be in the global economic system? What are our obligations to the oppressed? What does leadership mean in the 21st century?

February 3, 2012 Politics and Principles Jim Lehrer Journalist; News Anchor, PBS NewsHour For more than three decades, Jim Lehrer has been one of the most respected voices in broadcast news—lauded as an “island of sanity in the madness of television news” by the American Journalism Review. As longtime anchor of the PBS NewsHour and as a moderator for 11 presidential candidate debates over the last six elections, Lehrer is uniquely qualified to set the stage for our examination of American politics and global engagement.

March 11, 2012 Economics, Ethics & Justice Amartya Sen Economist and Nobel Laureate Named as one of Time Magazine’s “100 most influential persons in the world,” Amartya Sen won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on famine, human development theory, and welfare economics. Widely praised as “the conscience of his profession,” the Indian-born Sen provoked controversy by challenging the traditional economic model of self-interest as the prime motivating factor of human activity.

March 27, 2012 Americans and the World David Brooks New York Times Columnist Acclaimed New York Times columnist and NPR commentator David Brooks (a self-professed “New York conservative”) is one of our shrewdest analysts of politics and culture. A protégé of William F. Buckley, Brooks has written for the National Review, Atlantic Monthly, and Wall Street Journal, among many others. His most recent book, The Social Animal, debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List.

April 27, 2012 The Question of Afghanistan Sima Samar Human Rights Advocate Afghan human rights pioneer and Nobel Peace prize nominee Sima Samar has spent her life breaking barriers. The first Hazara woman to obtain a medical degree from Kabul University and an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, Dr. Samar was Deputy President of Afghanistan and the country’s first Minister for Women’s Affairs. Ousted by religious conservatives, she now chairs the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.

To place your order, click this link:
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When the page opens, fill out the form,
then hit “Next” – That’s it!

SO SUCCESSFUL THE LAST TWO YEARS IN A ROW, OUR IEEE MEMBERS ASKED WE DO IT AGAIN – DON’T MISS THIS ONE!!

EXPERIENCE UNFORGETTABLE EVENINGS WITH WORLD CLASS

SCIENTISTS AND EDUCATORS!
MEET THEM PERSONALLY BEFORE THE SHOW, WITH AN OPTION TO

"DINE WITH THE SPEAKER" AFTER THEIR LECTURES!

If you’re like me, you became an engineer to expand your world of learning, and to seek out exciting topics to stimulate and heighten your intellect and love of learning! I’m also guessing science, math, and technology are hot-wired into your brain, and you’d thrill at any chance to engage with some of the brightest researchers in the fields of science, philosophy, biology, theology and mathematics. How about if all that were both possible and affordable?! IEEE Membership has its privileges!

Now, for the second year in a row, IEEE Oregon Section has made arrangements with the Institute of Science, Education, and Public Policy (ISEPP), to offer you an opportunity to participate in a 6-part lecture series, where the greatest researchers in their respective fields will be speaking, in clear, everyday language, before an audience of peers, students, and other educated minds! This series of 6 mind-expanding lectures, coming to Portland from October 11, 2011 through May 17, 2011, at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, in downtown Portland, will offer you the chance to attend their presentations at a heavily discounted special IEEE price. You’ll not only hear these prestigious lectures, but also be assured three separate opportunities to engage with each speaker, one-on-one, and ask any questions that come to mind! If you attended any of the lectures last season, you know how exciting they can be!

Your evening will begin with an exclusive IEEE get-together with the speaker, before the lecture, and a chance to purchase personally autographed books! During the lecture, you’ll be sitting right up front, in the exclusive Patron Reserved Seating, where you’ll be engrossed in the presentation, then encouraged to ask your questions at the end of the talk. After the lecture, you are invited to join the speaker for a special IEEE attended dinner gathering at the Heathman Inn, where this intimate setting offers additional opportunities for questions and networking.*

This is truly an opportunity you don’t want to miss, at pricing way below that of similar type lectures in other cities, and considerably below non-member rates! Read below for all the sign-up information! Hope to see you there! If you have any questions, please call me at 432-559-7013 (cell)

Sincerely,

Christopher Jacobs, PhD EE Senior Member
IEEE Oregon Section Public Relations and Event Coordinator

* Dinner is a separately purchased event, and not included in price of the lectures (details below).

Linus Pauling Memorial Lectures

Human Genetics, Drug Development, and Biobanks

with Dr. David Cox
Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
Biotherapeutics and Innovation Center – Pfizer Inc.

Recent advances in DNA sequencing technology enable exploration of the genetic basis of a broad range of clinically important outcomes. Examples where a positive clinical outcome is associated with a significantly increased frequency of DNA sequence variants are particularly informative.
Such examples identify valuable diagnostic tools for patient stratification and provide new targets for the generation of novel drugs.

Lecture & Dinner Date:
7pm, Thursday, February 24, 2012

Want to learn more about this speaker and topic, click on link:

http://www.isepp.org/Pages/11-12%20Pages/Cox.html

Breakthrough in Energy: Nano-Solar

with Dr. Paul Alvisatos
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

As director of Berkeley Lab, Alivisatos has launched two major scientific initiatives, “Carbon Cycle 2.0,” a multidisciplinary approach to developing ways to help restore the balance in Earth’s carbon cycle, which has been adversely affected by human activity, and the “Next Generation Light Source,” the world’s first facility capable of producing x-ray pulses measured in attoseconds, the timescale needed to capture the movement of electrons. Alivisatos has also proactively invigorated Berkeley Lab’s safety culture and elevated the Lab’s community outreach efforts.
Alivisatos was appointed to lead Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division by then Lab director Charles Shank who hailed him as “one of the fathers of nanoscience.” One of the first to publish scientific results in the field, Alivisatos went on to publish well over 100 papers. He is widely recognized as the man who altered the nanoscience landscape with the creation of rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals that could be stacked to create nano-sized electronic devices. Until then, semiconductor nanocrystals came in one shape only, that of a sphere. He followed that milestone with numerous other technical breakthroughs that advanced nanotechnology, including the creation of a new generation of hybrid solar cells that combined nanotechnology with plastic electronics.

Lecture & Dinner Date:
7pm, Thursday, March 15th, 2012

Want to learn more about this speaker and topic, click on link:

http://www.isepp.org/Pages/11-12%20Pages/Alivisatos.html

Science and Religion: An Update

Dr. Dr. Philip Clayton
Yale University

Dr. Clayton develops a constructive Christian theology in dialogue with metaphysics, modern philosophy, and science. The demands of this task have led to his work and publications in the theory of knowledge; the history of philosophy and theology; the philosophy of science; physics, evolutionary biology and the neurosciences; comparative theology; and constructive metaphysics. A panentheist, he defends a form of process theology that is hypothetical, dialogical and pluralistic.
Author of 18 books and hundreds of articles, Clayton is an international leader in the dialogue between science and the world’s religions, a scholar on the future of faith, and an activist in emergent Christianity. He received Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. degrees from Yale University after receiving an M.A. from Fuller Theological Seminary and a B.A. from Westmont College. Clayton has also been instrumental in the planning process for Claremont Lincoln University

Lecture & Dinner Date:
7pm, Thursday, April 26th, 2012

Want to learn more about this speaker and topic, click on link:

http://www.isepp.org/Pages/11-12%20Pages/Clayton.html

Human Nature’s Social Brain

with Dr. John Cacioppo
University of Chicago

As a social species, humans create emergent organizations beyond the individual – structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and international alliances.
These emergent structures evolved hand in hand with neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic mechanisms to support them because the consequent social behaviors helped humans survive, reproduce, and care for offspring sufficiently long that they too survived to reproduce. Cacioppo’s research is focused on understanding these neural, hormonal, cellular, and genetic mechanisms and their effect on the mind, behavior, and health – an approach he and Gary Berntson termed social neuroscience.
Social neuroscience represents an inter-disciplinary approach devoted to understanding how biological systems implement social processes and behavior and to using biological concepts and methods to inform and refine theories of social processes and behavior. We use a variety of methods in our research, including functional magnetic resonance (fMRI), standard and high density electroencephalo-graphy and event-related brain potentials, psychophysiological assessments, and neuro-endocrine and immune assays, and in collaboration with colleagues we also have begun to bring quantitative genetics to bear on our research questions.

Lecture & Dinner Date:
7pm, Thursday, May 17th, 2012

Want to learn more about this speaker and topic, click on link:

http://www.isepp.org/Pages/11-12%20Pages/Cacioppo.html

THE DETAILS OF WHAT YOU RECEIVE AND THE MECHANICS OF HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

As a participant in this lecture series, you and your guests are entitled to the following perks and benefits:

· Significantly reduced ticket prices over non-members

o NO additional Ticketmaster surcharges*

o Additional price reductions for all junior- and high-school students! (This ONLY applies to students, please!. Valid ID may be required)

· Up-close-to-the-stage seating in the RESERVED PATRON SECTION, where all IEEE members and guests sit together

· Pre-lecture get-together with speakers to ask questions and, if desired, purchase copies of their books, which they will gladly autograph for you

· After-lecture opportunity to have wine and dinner, with the speaker in a PRIVATE DINING ROOM in the elegant Heathman Inn, right next door to the Schnitzer, for additional questions and answers (This is optional only, and at additional cost; see **, below)

HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS TERRIFIC IEEE OPPORTUNITY:

Depending on your interests, you can select just the speakers you want to hear–from just one to all six in the Series. Your family and friends are allowed to attend at the same price per ticket as you pay! What’s Your Investment?

* Your IEEE has arranged for you to bypass Ticketmaster (you buy directly from our affiliate, Matthews Media Marketing), and get the volume discount no matter what viewing combination suits your convenience. For example, you would pay the 6 ticket price if you went to all 6 lectures, you and 5 guests went to one lecture, or you and a partner went to 3 lectures; it’s all the same discounted price. NOTE: Normally, for this discount to be in effect, you would have to have one person going to either 4 or 6 lectures. However, this discount only applies to each individual purchase. That is, to get the 6 ticket price, you have to buy all 6 at once. You can’t buy 2 tickets now, 3 a month from now, and 1 more two months from now.

NOTE: Because Member prices are significantly lower than you could get elsewhere, and student prices have been further slashed as to be virtual give-always, we can only offer the multi-buy volume discount to adult tickets only, and NOT as a combination of both adult and student tickets. For example, if you purchase 6 adult tickets and 4 student tickets, you will receive the 6-ticket price of $38 each, and not the 10-ticket price of $36 each and the student tickets will only be $28.

** Because the cost of the after-lecture dinner at the Heathman Inn is not under our control, we cannot reduce the $55 price. Your attendance is purely optional. However, we can tell you, having attended these dinners before, the food and wine are amazing, the conversation and question/answer opportunities are both stimulating and memorable, and the opportunity to meet and network with other like-minded scientists and educators is a not-to-be-missed occasion. Because dinner discussions often center on the topic(s) of the lectures, attendance is only available as a continuation of the presentations and cannot be purchased apart from the lectures themselves.

QUESTIONS REGARDING DEADLINES

TICKETS FOR EACH LECTURE MUST BE ORDERED NO LESS THAN TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE LECTURE DATE!

Here are answers to two questions you might already be asking:

Q: If I can order two weeks before each lecture, what is the advantage of ordering all my tickets now?
A: Saves money, because the volume discounts only apply to each order, so if you spread your order out, you don’t get the best volume discount deal.

Q: What if something unexpected comes up and I can’t attend.
A: All the lectures will be recorded. If you paid for and can’t attend any lecture, you will be mailed, at no cost, the DVD of that lecture. You can also pass on your ticket to another family member or friend, if desired.

TO PLACE YOUR ORDER: CLICK ON THIS LINK:

http://ieee-beeep.org/tickets

when the page opens, fill out the form, hit "Purchase Tickets" –

That’s it!

If you have any questions, please call me at 432-559-7013 (cell)

By Brian Conley

I had a client that built a transmitting device with filters that he had completely modeled in SPICE and it worked perfectly from anywhere in the building to any other building location. It overcame any shielding built into the walls. He was very happy with it until he took it outside because he wanted to see how far it would transmit line of sight.

Well he was originally getting some good range but then the range started to fall and after about 15 minutes it started to really act strange and the filters developed a mind of their own.

He dropped it off at my place and we talked about some other issues and then we fired it up. Again it worked perfectly.

From all my working experience I learned, the first place to look when you experience this type of flaky performance is temperature. It was 37 degrees F the time he took it outside, and he had tuned it indoors where it was 67-72 degrees. Taking a little can of “Freeze-it” I cooled various parts of his circuit. When I got to the power supply regulator, sure enough, it really started to act up.

He told me that he had modeled it in SPICE which was good, but he told SPICE that the temperature was 70 degrees, which was what it was in his lab at the time. When I re-ran the simulation telling spice to set the temperature even as high as 50 degrees it showed the same characteristic problems we observed. SPICE said it shouldn’t even have run at all at 37 degrees.

How passive components, resistors and capacitors, behave with temperature changes is often critical to system performance. Unfortunately this topic is not covered in most undergraduate and even graduate classes. The easiest way to begin understanding temperature effects is to look at the equation that circuit simulators such as SPICE and Saber use to model these changes. The equation is as follows:

R = Rnom * ( 1 + TC[1] * (Temp – Tnom) + TC[2] * (Temp – Tnom) ** 2)

Where:

• R is the resistance at the specific temperature
• Rnom is the nominal resistance, measured at Tnom
• Tnom is the temperature at which the nominal resistance is measured
• TC is a two element array of the temperature coefficients
• TC[1] is the array element that causes a linear change with temperature
• TC[2] is the array element that causes a quadratic change with temperature

For this article all temperatures are in Celsius, as is often the specified conditions

The other important idea is the Part Per Million or PPM.

What is “PPM” ?

PPM, or “Parts Per Million”, is the ‘little brother’ of percentage.

Where percentage is how many per hundred share a specific characteristic, PPM is how many per million. Some

examples:

1.0 % = 0.01 = 10,000 PPM = 10m

100 PPM = 0.01 % = 0.000100 = 100u

1 PPM = 0.0001 % = 0.000001 = 1.0u

The lesson is clear, if you are going to expect your circuit to work over evenly a reasonably wide temperature range you should simulate it, and hopefully test it as well, to over 10 degrees C above and below the expected actual range of use.

——————————–

Brian B. Conley, PE

Circuitsville Engineering LLC

www.circuitsvilleeng.com

Voice -  503-530-6520

FAX – 503-574-2066

bconley@circuitsvilleeng.com

By Dr. Christopher Jacobs Ph.D. EE
Senior Member

Abstract of the Intel position:

Our world is accelerating. For success in every industry, keeping abreast of major trends in computing has become essential as the wall between the physical and the digital worlds continues to crumble. The fates of companies are now being determined in months, not years. We are already surrounded by a dazzling array of digital devices, from PCs and smartphones, to tablets, digital signage, smart TVs and more. And we’re just getting started. By the end of the decade we expect over 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet: smart cars, smart transportation networks, a smart energy grid, and compute power that makes today’s fastest computers look like toys. In this fast-paced talk you’ll go on a whirlwind tour of the computing industry. You’ll hear about the latest trends in global markets, technology, and the computing industry, and what they mean to us all. You will also hear about Intel’s vision for the future—a vision they are calling “The Compute Continuum”—including details on context-aware computing, the future of the cloud, and how it will all fit together. With one billion new people coming online in just the next five years, and more data expected to race around the web in the next 2 years than in the entire history of the Internet combined, the rate of change is dizzying. The Internet revolution is just beginning. Buckle up.

Biography: Who Is Speaking for Intel

Steve Brown, Chief Evangelist, Intel Corporation
Steve is responsible for ensuring that Intel’s 98,000 employees understand and are excited by Intel’s business and strategy for the future. He travels the world meeting face-to-face with Intel employees and shares his insights on industry trends, market trends, technology trends, user trends, competition, and Intel’s plans for the future.  He also writes a popular internal blog. Steve acts as a consult on Intel business strategy and also offers communications training to Intel leaders. Steve joined Intel in 1985 and holds bachelors and masters degrees in Microelectronic Systems Engineering. He has held a variety of roles spanning engineering, marketing, sales, events, manufacturing, and communications. Steve is passionate about technology, and what it can do for people. Steve was born in Britain but became a US citizen in 2008. He and his fiancee live in downtown Portland, Oregon.

YOUR BEEEP INTERVIEWS INTEL’S CHIEF EVANGELIST:

BEEEP: In the material presented about what you do it calls you a “Intel’s Chief Evangelist”. Usually we think of an evangelist as one preaching about the word of God. In what context are you an evangelist?

BROWN: In the computer world an evangelist is someone who very positively talks about the technology we have today and believes that this technology is poised to make our lives not only significantly better but also significantly more personal. That certainly describes me and what I do. Many high tech companies like Google and Microsoft have “evangelists”

BEEEP: Well what does an evangelist do for Intel?

BROWN: I spend most of my time traveling the world explaining to Intel’s 98,000 employees the nature of our company mission, what we are trying to accomplish, what it is they are doing to help achieve those goals, and what they could do differently to further the mission. We’re all about access: whether it’s about giving access to medical care with remote capability, information, cloud computing, it’s all about access.

BEEEP: What would you say is the best part of your job.

BROWN: When I explain to someone, who maybe heads down getting that specialized part of their job done, where and how their job fits into the Intel mission; and I see the light go on in their eyes. When they tell me they never knew how relevant their job was for future mankind’s happiness. That is what I love about this job. I’m a teacher at heart.

BEEEP: What then is Intel’s mission?

BROWN: By the end of this decade Intel wants to have all people connected and to improve the lives of every person on the planet.

BEEEP: Wow! Every person on the planet. Is that realistic?

BROWN: We believe so. We believe we can keep moving Moore’s law forward, (Moore’s Law says that the number of transistors on a chip, circuit density, switching speed will increase at such a rate that computing power will double every 18 month). When we do that, simple math and imagination will tell you that by the end of the decade we’ll have at least 5 doublings, and with that we can achieve our goal. Today’s smart phones have more computing power than what we called “super computers” just 20 years ago. It’s true that super computer of yesteryear were employed to solve problems like space travel and other heady agendas whereas today’s smart phone are employed more along the lines of where is the best place to go to dinner and what’s the best way to get there. However, the amount of computing power required is higher for what the smart phone does because the phone has to deal with ever changing requirements.

BEEEP: What are some areas that come to mind where this type of computer technology can provide significant benefits to mankind?

BROWN: Oh my gosh, do you have 10 hours for me to just touch the surface? Let’s talk about movies, medicine, transportation, mobile communication. Really, the list feels endless.

BEEEP: What would be an everyday analogy?

BROWN: I would agree with the analogy that Intel wants to build an almost self-steering highly reliable car that brilliant people can drive to where ever they want to go be it DreamWorks making movies or Pixar or surgeons using robots doing surgery are telling the robots what to do even though the surgeon is on a different continent than where the patient is on the operating table.

BEEEP: What area are examples of what Intel is doing to keep Moore’s law moving along?

BROWN: Well 3D movie technology comes immediately to mind because in the same real time you need three times the computing power, once for the right eye, once for the left eye, and once more for the DVD release. Right now the videographers tell the computer what they think they want to be shown on the screen. Then they go home at night and the computer works all night rendering the images for them to see them in the morning. Well Intel wants to give them the power to see their images in real time, not overnight. That takes hundreds of times the computing power, and that is a good everyday example of what Intel wants to achieve! The farmers of the future will have access to long term weather predictions so they will know what crops to best plant and how to be better prepared to cultivate them for maximum yield.

BEEEP: In Intel’s circles we hear the words “Computer Continuum”. What exactly is Computer Continuum?

BROWN: Now we are getting into one of Intel’s strongest visions. All around us we have so many technical devices that all are working mostly separate from one another. Yes you can use your smart phone to put an item on your schedule on your computer, but overall they are not a continuum. Today your smart phone knows no more about you than the day you bought it. All that will change in the future. We at Intel believe we can achieve a point where you can literally have a personal assistant in your pocket in ways that may literally exceed what having a human assistant could achieve.

BEEEP: Are you going to have to be a computer genius or aficionado to be able to manage your personal assistant?

BROWN: Not at all. Intel’s objective is to but all the sophistication inside so the system becomes intuitive to your needs and knows what you are trying to accomplish, and if it is confused it will know how to ask you in a way that is meaningful to both you and the system.

BEEEP: What are we going to do about hackers, viruses and other mal-ware? As we get more dependent on technology, we become more vulnerable, and bad people are smart too.

BROWN: No doubt about that, but fortunately they tend to be loan operatives or small groups. Intel has tens of thousands of engineers working on keeping the technology safe. We are changing the philosophy of the way we do security. Before, the system was set such that it would inherently work but security devices were put in place to only allow the right people to proceed. The new way, which will be much harder to get around will be to make the system inherently not work, and the proper user will have to provide the go forward means to get the system to continue. I realize that this is somewhat of a conceptual explanation, but suffice to say, this new way will be much harder to crack.

BEEEP: Would you say that all this progress will require that we all agree on a standard format or we’ll be getting into the situation where the cassette destroyed the 8-track, and then the CD destroyed the cassette, there was a war between the Beta and the VHS and so on.

BROWN: Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more, and Intel sees as part of its mission to steer that protocall toward the best most practical robust format regardless of any business politics or favoritism. We like open systems where everyone can participate. When you have a closed system you can often innovate more quickly, but in an open system you can get more profound improvements. Also almost without exception, with an open system you do get lower overall prices.

BEEEP: When you talk about open versus closed are you talking about things like Linux based OS versus Windows?

BROWN: Not really. They are platforms. I mean that at the various levels or platforms the interchange between that level and the ones above and below that level is accessible to inventors, programmers, and innovators.

BEEEP: You know what’s coming now. I’m going to ask you for a hypothetical real life example of where a “personal assistant in your pocket” might apply.

BROWN: OK, suppose you were on a business trip in an area you had never been in before and you were totally unfamiliar with. Based on your past behavior, your personal assistant figured out you like golf. As you are driving along it is continuously searching the internet for all things that might apply to you. It spots that there is a public golf course close buy that not only has some start time available, but is running a half price special. It also knows your clubs and cloths are in the trunk of your car. It checks your schedule and sees you have the next three hours free. It rings you, and tells you that situation. It asks if you want to take advantage of that golfing opportunity. If you say yes, it immediately books your appointment for you, and the built in GPS guides you to the course location. In a matter of two minutes you went from having nothing to do for three hours to having a wonderful golf game, and all without any fuss on your part. Another example that may not be as exciting but would be more common is let’s say you just finished a project and sent it off. Your personal assistant would remind you to call Dan and tell him the project is done because you had told your assistant that you needed to tell Dan when you were done with that project. This type computer continuum makes event based reminders possible, not just calendar based reminders.

BEEEP: Wow again! You guys really believe that’s possible.

BROWN: Absolutely and by the end of this decade!

A Stagnant Industry Ripe for Disruptive Change

By Allen G. Taylor

Recently, Elon Musk of SpaceX gave some insight into his business philosophy. He noted that many people considered the space industry to be moribund. The United States has been using essentially the same rocket technology for decades. This past week NASA sent its Curiosity rover to Mars on an Atlas V rocket. The Atlas V and the Delta IV are the most capable launchers we have and they are both almost old enough to collect Social Security benefits. I can vividly remember walking through the Atlas factory in the 1960s in San Diego, which was the building next to the one that housed my cubicle. There was a row of gleaming metal rockets in varying degrees of completion.

Sure, the Atlas V of today is an improved version of the one that we were building in the 1960s, but it is the result of a series of incremental improvements, nothing radically different. All the traditional space companies are doing essentially the same thing they have done since Yuri Gagarin woke up the USA by flying over our airspace without asking for clearance. They are depending on cost plus fixed fee contracts from the US government. For decades there has been no incentive to make radical improvements in the way things are done or to cut costs. After all, the government would pay whatever was charged, and cost overruns had come to be expected as normal.

In a word, the space industry had become stagnant. Musk cited such an industry as one ripe for disruptive change. He founded SpaceX and set about designing rockets from scratch, with no preconceived notions and no ties to legacy launchers which had started life as nuclear bomb-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.

SpaceX has become a powerful disruptive force in the launch business, despite efforts by the old guard and their allies in government to keep on doing business as usual. SpaceX is severely undercutting the competition in launch costs, and is working aggressively on cutting costs even more, by developing fully reusable boosters.

SpaceX is only one of a number of new companies, headed by visionary leaders, which are finding new ways to reach and operate in space. This so-called NewSpace movement is causing a major disruption in the way the space business is done, and it is about time. Forty three years ago, NASA sent Apollo 8 to the Moon. Six of the subsequent Apollo missions landed on the Moon, the last one returning thirty nine years ago. Since then, no American has gone beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). It’s about time to break out of the doldrums and start reaching high again. Private companies such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Bigelow Aerospace are the catalysts to an industry that will get us out there. The Federal bureaucracy and Congress would serve us best by getting out of their way, rather than handing down mandates of how things should be done.

Let the disruption happen. If that means laying off engineers who have obsolete skills, so be it. It’s good to move out of your comfort zone anyway. Learn something new and then start to make a real contribution.

3D Printers May Help Fix Fractures*

The amazing and complex worlds of high-tech engineering, technology, and medicine are coming together in ways that could never have been predicted years ago! Eons removed from the simplicity of the basic printer and copy machines, 3D printers were originally developed as a form of additive manufacturing technology, where a three dimensional object is created by laying down successive layers of material, such as plastics or metals. Currently this technology is being used to benefit the fields of jewelry, footwear, industrial design, architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), automotive, aerospace, education, geographic information systems, and civil engineering. Astoundingly, now engineers are now making it possible to repair human tissue, such skin, teeth, and unbelievably, to order custom-fitted bone, printed on demand, to mend fractured or brittle bones in human patients. A 3D printer has already created new, bone-like material that can support bone growth in recent tests.

This printed bone material has already proved capable of supporting human bone cells in lab tests, and has also proved successful in the bodies of rats and rabbits. Better versions created by 3D printers could help surgeons perform bone repair surgery, dental work, or even deliver medicine for osteoporosis within the next several years.

“If a doctor has a CT scan of a defect, we can convert it to a CAD file and make the scaffold according to the defect,” said Susmita Bose, a mechanical and materials engineer at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash.

3D printers are already successful at creating a growing range of objects, anywhere on the fly, from robots to human organs to blood cells. Criminals have even used 3D printers to create fake ATM card skimmers to scam bank customers.

To print the bone material, Bose and her colleagues used a commercially available ProMetal 3D printer, originally designed to print metal objects. It uses an inkjet printer head to spray plastic binding liquid over a bed of powder to create objects, layer by layer. Each layer is just half the width of a human hair.

The bone scaffold material is primarily made up of calcium phosphate, but also includes added silicon and zinc to double its strength. This material can dissolve in the human body after helping normal bone grow to repair any damage.

Figuring out the right mix for the material required a four-year effort involving chemistry, materials science, biology and manufacturing, with $1.5 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health. The results from in vitro lab tests and in vivo animal tests appear in the journal Dental Materials.

*Material taken, in part, from FoxNews, December 1, 2011

(The following in this section is the author’s own opinions, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the IEEE or any of its members.)

WHAT’S REALLY GOING ON IN OREGON’S HIGH TECHNOLOGY SECTOR (an opinion)

Leonard Forbes, Ph.D., Life Member IEEE, Prolific living inventor in electrical sciences and technology

I remember my first visit to Oregon, upon arriving from California along Interstate 5. There was a sign that basically said, “Welcome to Oregon, have a nice visit, but don’t stay.” I wasn’t sure who’s idea that was, or the implicit message, but thought it decidedly unfriendly, if not a bit arrogant. It was a mindset I later learned had very ominous consequences for the very industry it needed for economic survival.

Soon after moving to Corvallis in 1983, I got a job with the Department of Electrical Engineering at Oregon State University, and thought it resembled something out of the past. Even worse was the Department at Portland State University. The previous facilities at PSU, before moving into the old blue Waterworks building in Portland, must have resembled John Brown University in Siloam Springs Arkansas. I came with experience and expertise in two areas of recent and new activities in Oregon–compound semiconductors and silicon materials and technology.

Inexpensive and plentiful electric power, water, space and labor were attractive to silicon wafer manufacturers. A German and American manufacture already had a presence, and a Japanese one was starting up in the region, besides the large Union Carbide polysilicon facilities in central Washington State. The American wafer manufacturer is now owned by a Japanese solar cell company, and the polysilicon facilities in Moses Lake, WA, are owned by REC of Norway. Recently, I’ve been engaged in technology and intellectual property for silicon solar cells, and have had an article published, DOI: 10.1016/j.solener.2011.10.003, in the prestigious journal “Solar Energy,” regrettably only published overseas. Unfortunately, 80% of the silicon solar cell manufacturing is in China (PRC), and the 7% that was in the USA has just recently become foreign-controlled.

While Oregon’s high-tech industry may now be in slow recovery, initially Oregon was very anti-business, in general, and anti-technology, specifically. Let me give you some examples. In the early 1980s, INTEL was beginning to make the Aloha facility the primary silicon integrated circuit technology center for the company, and has continued to do so. However, nearly all the initial technical expertise came from outside the State of Oregon, and continues, in large part, to be so today. At that time, Oregon State was known mostly for a large collection of visa graduate students it sent to the semiconductor sweat shops in the California bay area. The technical life expectancy of most was from two to four years. One of the professors, later to become a department head, described them as nothing but “a bunch of misguided visa students.” INTEL had a long policy of accepting only exceptional visa students. Hewlett-Packard had just moved into Corvallis, and even had a CMOS integrated circuit facility that subsequently moved to Colorado, and later overseas. Hynix was located in Eugene for a number of years, after having had to accept endless environmental hearings and given an undesirable site location near a swamp.

One of my graduate students was funded by Hyundai (Hynix), so he had all the top management visit Oregon State, myself included. It was clear they were not impressed. In fact, my research facilities were so poor, I always tried to meet my visitors off campus so as not to be embarrassed. Our situation was best described, by an early 1980s report from the National Science Foundation on the status of engineering in the USA, as follows: “babysitting undergraduates, spoon feeding graduate students, money grubbing and working out of facilities similar to those in the back room of the Smithsonian institution” (the quotes are mine, after significant rephrasing!) Most of my research equipment was surplus from Hewlett-Packard, courtesy of Prof. J.C. Looney, who worked there part-time and purchased them as used equipment.

The real losers in all of this is the State of Oregon, as reflected in our current financial crisis. When Alpha and Omega Semiconductor bought Integrated Device Technology’s semiconductor factory in Hillsboro, in 2009, it outsourced all its work to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (TSMC), who committed nine billion dollars to building a modern silicon integrated circuit manufacturing facility in its own country. Oregon lost the potential for hundreds of new jobs, and substantial tax revenue! We simply cannot afford to have all relevant high technology manufacturing go elsewhere.

The reality is that now the quality of many engineering schools, in what were previously “third world” countries, are better than those in Oregon. And the standard of living is not that different! The local newspaper quoted the director of the local ONAMI facility as saying that research at OSU was getting better, but implicit in that statement was the fact that it is still not good. Forget, nanotechnology. There were never any real facilities in microtechnology, and the administration seemed to be made up of mediocre graduates from poor graduate schools. For my part, I was fortunate to be one of the better graduates from a top school, and had to defend my doctoral thesis against a two time Nobel prize winner.

The situation in compound semiconductor technology and integrated circuits was not much better. I came to Oregon with an idea for the improvement of some problems limiting the technology, and to work with TriQuint semiconductor. After three or four years, the project was moving to fruition, and the intent was to somehow capitalize on this by incorporating it into products. Unfortunately, in my opinion, new ideas were not well received in Oregon, and the whole project was sabotaged, the test devices and measurement instrument were removed from my lab at OSU, the people who might have contributed to circuit design and products would not cooperate, and instead, I was told my very ideas were not original. The Lottery fund, instead, spent a huge amount on a fish farm in Springfield that soon failed, and I got a dressing-down from OSU. Later, almost exactly the same idea started up again, and still continues in North Carolina as RFMicroDevices. To me, the difference was simply the attitude toward technology. For my part, I left to spend my summers in sunny San Diego.

Offhand, one might think that new ideas might be well-received, and someone busy contributing to science and technology might be appreciated, but not in Oregon. Here, it seems it is possible to contribute too many patents assigned to support a regional company, and primarily to provide summer support for myself (OSU only pays administrators summer support.) OSU, itself has virtually no relevant high technology patents, and the administrators themselves no credible record of patents. The engineering Provost has none! Some administrators and friends had even filed a number of patents in support of their private company, but the last I heard, none were granted! In my opinion, there was more concern with administrative titles, such as “director” or “executive,” to ensure they would be among the one thousand recipients in Oregon with PERS benefits over $100,000/year. The importance of technology was heavily downplayed in favor of bureaucratic posturing. All of this at the expense of insuring faculty is granted basic protection under civil law, criminal law and civil rights!

The situation in home-grown Oregon companies, like Tektronix, is not much better. When I first came to Oregon, I was told the story of two Tektronix engineers, who, on their own time and expense, using their own facilities, built a desktop computer. They made the mistake of showing it to their Tektronix manager who said, “I’ll take that, it all belongs to Tektronix.” Thus was born Tektronix R&D on desktop computers and instrument controllers! They had some for awhile, but GPIB later became synonymous with Hewlett-Packard Instrument Buss (HPIB). Tektronix shrank to become a shadow of its former self in the 1980s, reducing its work force to about a third. The bureaucrats had won again!

According to Cyberstates 2011, here’s how Oregon ranks in the high-tech industry, in 2010, compared to the rest of the country:

• Oregon ranks 21^st in the number of high-tech workers it employs (only 79,300). In other words, there are 20 states better than us!
• 1,100 jobs lost between 2009 and 2010
• High-tech firms employed 60 of every 1,000 private sector workers in 2010, ranked Oregon 13^th nationwide
• High-tech workers earned an average wage of $87,500 (10^th ranked), or 119 percent more than Oregon’s average private sector wage
• A high-tech payroll of $6.9 billion in 2010, ranking Oregon 19^th nationwide
• 5,000 high-tech establishments in 2010, ranked Oregon 23^rd nationwide

Here’s how we rank in Oregon’s National Industry Sector:

• We are 3^rd in semiconductor manufacturing employment with 23,600 jobs
• 7^th in software publishers employment with 9,000 jobs
• 9^th in photonics manufacturing employment with 900 jobs

The decision by Intel Corp. to build the D1X fab in Hillsboro is about only bright light on an otherwise dulling and embarrassing horizon, and that only happened because Oregon/Hillsboro gave Intel some significant financial incentives.

The State of Oregon now finds itself in a difficult financial situation to which there seems to be no easy resolution. Insofar as graduate schools in high technology go, every new graduate student should be given a flyer, “Welcome to Oregon, Get a Degree but Don’t Stay! Contribute to the World at Large somewhere else!”

Why Oregon would bite the very economic hand that feeds it remains a mystery. If you agree, please contact your elected officials and tell them to start implementing programs that will attract and cultivate high-tech industries, and especially the smartest technical minds.

For Engineers Who Hate Networking…

by Gary Perman

“Hello, I’m Gary Perman. I’m a headhunter; an industry insider in the fields of electric vehicles, alternative energy, and electronics. Technology companies hire me to find their next executive, manager, or engineer.”

Sometimes it seems like I hit two or three networking events a week. One might think so much networking would come natural to me. Some might even think I have the “people gift.” Not so. There are times I dread going. At times I even search for ways to get out of attending them. So even a guy who makes his living networking and people- matching can have the networking “jitters.”

Personally, I am much more comfortable behind a phone and computer than meeting new people face-to-face. Perhaps you are more comfortable innovating new products and solving problems? Yet networking is essential today. It provides opportunity for collaborations, improving relationships, building trust, growing your business, and yes, even future employment. The market has proven time and again that you can never know when you will become unemployed. The more people you know, the sooner you can rebound from a layoff. Nothing can replace face-to-face interaction.

Most engineers I know share a common dislike for networking. Really, though, it is not so much “dislike” as it is fear. Remember high school? Getting up the nerve to ask someone to a dance? Or standing in line during P.E. waiting to see who picks you for their team? It’s the same kind of fear that many of us carry as we approach a networking event. Well, this isn’t high school; it’s real life, and your career depends on networking.

I’ve read the networking books, attended workshops, and asked a lot of people, who are good at networking, to share their secrets. I have collected traits and practices that have made me better at networking. I still face those initial jitters during the first moments at the registration table, but now they dissipate with the first handshake. I am here to tell you that you don’t have to be a master at networking, or have a “Type A” personality to succeed. All it takes is a little planning and some strategy, and after all, isn’t that what engineers do best anyway?

Have A Plan

When I attend an event, I typically plan to meet one to three people I have picked out in advance. If they are not there, or unavailable, I have a backup plan. I pick a number of new people I want to meet, usually five to ten. My goal is to ask them two questions, and swap contact cards. Once I have reached my goal, I am off the hook. I can go home, see a movie, or catch the end of the game at the bar. I have set a goal and reached it. Networking events are not a prison sentence if you don’t make them one.

Kathy Condon, author of, It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask, has some great advice on networking. She is a consummate networker, and lives by what she teaches. One of the best tips I ever learned was from her many years ago: When you first enter a room, step to the side and assess the room and people in it. Look for the person standing alone. That is target number one. Most likely, that person would love to talk with someone. Personally, I have met some of my best contacts that way; people who have turned out to be executives and engineering leaders. Some of them are just not very good at schmoozing, but get them one-on-one and they will talk your ears off!

It’s Not All About You

Keith Ferrazzi made this important point in his book, Never Eat Alone. When it comes to networking, it’s not about you. When you spend time meeting people, try and see if there is a way you can be of help to them. Putting this priority first in your mind makes networking easier. Why? You might not be a great networker, but you are a great problem solver. If you can help someone else with an issue, solve a problem, generate an idea, or make a contact, you are working in the sweet spot of your skill set. Not only will you help someone else, but along the way good things will happen to you, too.

Ask Good Questions

Get to know people by asking good questions. Boring questions get boring answers. “What do you do?,” “Tell me about your company,” and “How long have you been with … ?” are all examples of typical openers that get typical results. They are boring and the answer usually involves the other person looking over your shoulder in hopes of finding a more interesting person to talk to. Instead, try these questions (it is okay to write them down and carry them in your pocket):

[ ] “What business problem does your company solve?” Follow up with, “How are you doing that?”

[ ] “What has been the biggest win for you (or your company) in the last six months?” Follow up with, “What do you think it will be in the next six months?”

[ ] “What is the most interesting initiative you have planned at your company this year?” Follow up with, “How will that change your company?”

[ ] “Do you know anyone who might be able to help me…?” Ask for names of people who might be able to help you find the person you are looking for, or solve a problem you are dealing with.

“My favorite approach,” says Kathy Condon, is to “walk up to someone with your hand extended and smile and say, ‘So tell me what great thing happened to you recently?’ The key here is to really listen to the answer – then you’ll be given the information you can use to ask the next question. People love to talk about themselves — get to know the person standing before you on a personal level. Then set up a coffee date and you can talk about your work at that meeting. People hire people, collaborate with people, referral people they know and like.” You want to ask questions that initiate a conversation out of the norm, and these questions will do that. Once they have answered your questions, there is just one more to ask; “Is there some way I can help you?”

I have a good friend who always ends every conversation with, “What can I do for you?” He is seriously asking if I might need a referral, a new contact, or a solution to a new problem. At first my response was, “Oh nothing. I’m fine,” until I wised up. Since his business takes him into contact with many companies, I started asking questions like, “Well, yes, do you know anyone who works at XYZ company?” When I ask, I often receive a positive reply, something I appreciate and remember him for.

It’s The Little Things

It is so true in networking, business, and in life, it’s the little things people remember. After I network with someone, I jot down a note on the back of their contact card. It might be something special about them, how I might help them, or what I thought of them. I use that information when I write a follow-up email the next day. Want to make an even bigger, more positive impression? Send them a handwritten note the next day. Maybe they gave you a great idea, or helped solve an engineering problem you were stuck on. Perhaps they provided a referral to a potential client. Thanking them goes a long way towards creating a long lasting relationship. I often meet people at networking events who are unemployed. If I can’t help them professionally, I can offer to send them a copy of, “Doug’s List,” an extensive list of networking events, groups, and job boards in the metro area. Though it costs me only a few seconds of my time, it might mean a lot to them. Those are the kind of “little things” that people will remember about you.

Exit Gracefully

Recently, I watched a real networking pro work a room. She would introduce herself, ask a question or two, and ask if she could help them. Then she would exchange contact cards, put out her hand to shake, and say, “It has been so nice to spend a few minutes getting to know you. I hope you have great success with your new product launch.” Then she would smile graciously and just move on. She took the initiative to introduce herself, controlled the conversation with a few questions, and then exited gracefully. Not monopolizing a person’s time is a very real courtesy in a networking situation.

The rhythm that she set was exactly the right tempo to accomplish what a networking event should accomplish. Finding that rhythm can be a challenge for many of us. When we find someone willing to engage in a conversation, we are in our comfort zone. Being comfortable with someone feels safer than making an exit and risking finding another person to talk with, yet by using these methods, you can move from one person to another, meet a variety of people, and plant the seeds for future business relationships.

Strategy for Networking

Plan to come away from your next networking event with these three things:

[ ] Contact cards. These cards provide the contact information you need to stay in touch. The notes you made on the back of the cards will be used when you follow up with an email or note the following day.

[ ] Names of prospective contacts. Future collaboration or future employment,, you never know where these contacts might lead you.

[ ] Knowledge. Plan to leave an event with more information about your industry, competitors, and clients than when you went in.

Checklist for Networking Success

[ ] Before the event, rehearse what you are going to say; who you are, what you do, and how you solve people’s problems.

[ ] Check that you have your contact cards with you. Always. No exceptions, no excuses! Want to appear unprofessional? Show up at an event without contact cards.

[ ] Smile. It sounds trite, but people who are nervous or concerned often project a message that says, “Stay away.” Be conscious of your smile. It is your invitation to others to step up and say, “Hi.”

[ ] Unplug the earphone. Engage with people in the room. If you must have a phone, put it on “vibrate” and carry it out of sight. If you receive a call, excuse yourself from the conversation and step out of the room before taking it.

[ ] Be the first to introduce yourself, every time. Put your hand out, smile, and follow your plan.

[ ] The next day, send a quick email to every person you have a card from. Thank them for their time and the opportunity to meet them. This pays huge dividends.

[ ] Don’t complain. Just because networking isn’t your thing, no one wants to hear about what you don’t like. You are there. Do what you came to do with a smile on your face.

Kathy Condon says, “Social media networking (Facebook, Linked-In) has to be a part of your personal and professional marketing wheel, but face-to-face networking will never be replaced.

For some people, networking comes naturally, and I envy them. For others like me, we have to work at it. Following the plan outlined above takes almost all of the stress out of networking, and I’ve even learned to enjoy it! I hope to see you at a networking event soon.

Editor’s Note: Gary Perman is a certified recruiting professional and owns PermanTech, a national search firm which specializes in recruiting EV, Solar and Electronics executives, managers and engineers. He is also the Chair for the IEEE Oregon Technology Management Chapter and the Oregon Section Secretary. He can be reached at gary@permantech.com www.permantech.com

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org

IEEE GOLD

Engineers who recently graduated will soon be assuming leadership positions within IEEE. Here is what is happening with these graduates over the last 10 years and how they will be affecting your IEEE.

Figure 1 IEEE GOLD membership lifecycle.

Recent graduates often meet challenges as they transition to more professional roles as entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers or academicians, IEEE Graduates of Last Decade (GOLD) membership program was launched in 1996 to help students in overcoming the challenges and become successful. If you are IEEE student member you are automatically added to the GOLD member community as you graduate. All engineers who graduated with their first professional degree within last 10 years are part of GOLD. IEEE GOLD is now a rapidly growing vibrant community connecting young engineers, scientists, and technical experts, with more than 50k member representation all around the world and throughout IEEE societies. Being in GOLD community will provide you professional help and networking opportunity in employment searches, new jobs, professional growth, career development, and life status changes.

Figure 2 IEEE GOLD membership across the globe in various regions.

In addition, being in GOLD community you have access to variety of membership benefits and opportunities. Check out the IEEE monthly GOLD webinars (hyperlink: http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/gold/gold_webinars.html) presented by experts in their fields, recorded for on-demand viewing. They are cover variety of topics of interest to young professionals from professional development to technical knowledge to humanitarian initiatives. Curious to find out what’s going on throughout the regions among IEEE GOLD members or find the latest news on GOLD activities/events! Check out colorful IEEE GOLDRush Newsletter (hyperlink: http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/gold/goldrushnewsletter.html) IEEE GOLDRush newsletter is published quarterly and is available online free of charge and GOLD members and in fact you can submit article to get your work noticed around the world.

If you seek to get professional help or would like volunteer to help young professionals, IEEE mentoring connection program provides higher-grade IEEE members with the opportunity of enhancing their career skills through peer guidance. Through this program you can become mentee and form professional development partnerships with IEEE members to learn about career-enhancing skills. For further details please visit IEEE mentoring connection (hyperlink:

http://www.ieee.org/membership_services/membership/gold/goldrushnewsletter.html)

Annual GOLD summit brings together GOLD members all across the globe and provides an exceptional opportunity to network, exchange ideas, hone leadership skills and gain in-depth working knowledge of IEEE and GOLD. You definitely wouldn’t want to miss it!!

How can you get involved in IEEE GOLD?

First, check if your college or university has IEEE chapter ask to connect with local GOLD affinity groups. If you do not have one, IEEE Oregon section could help in initiating a STEP program to recognize student members as they graduate and help to become part of local GOLD community. In this process the graduating student members will be introduced to local IEEE entity beyond the IEEE student branch. Funding is available from IEEE to support GOLD Affinity groups in organizing STEP events with more than 10 recent graduates in attendance.

(Article written by Venkata Chivukula, GOLD member Region 6)

Figure 3 IEEE GOLD members and officers at the Section Congress in San Francisco.