Capital Science 2008
Capital Science 2008 took place on March 29-30, 2008 at the National Science Foundation. Abstracts are preceded by a Table of Contents, which is divided into two sections: the highlights of the Conference followed by an alphabetical listing of the participating Affiliates. Entries in the Table of Contents are linked to the Abstracts of their respective Affiliates. For details of these excellent presentations, please contact the authors directly.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
| Keynote Address – 6:00PM Saturday, March 29 – Hilton Hotel |
“The Future of U.S. Innovation: Fate or Fatality?” – National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement | |
| Luncheon Talk – Noon Saturday, March 29 – Hilton Hotel |
“Symmetry: From Human Perception to the Laws of Nature” – Dr. Mario Livio, Senior Astrophysicist and Head of the Office of Public Outreach, Space Telescope Science Institute. |
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| Luncheon Talk – Noon Sunday, March 30 – Hilton Hotel |
“Science and Size” – Dr. Maxine Singer, recently retired (2002) as President of the Carnegie Institute and Scientist Emeritus at the National Cancer Institute. (No abstract) |
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| Plenary Session – 11:00PM Saturday, March 29 – Room 375 |
“NSF Office of Polar Programs” – Dr. Kelly Falkner, Program Director, Antarctic Science Division, NSF Office of Polar Programs |
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| Plenary Session – 4:00PM Saturday, March 29 – Room 1235 |
“Tissue Ownership: Ethical, Legal, and Policy Considerations” – Panel led by Dr. William Gardner, Executive Director, American Registry of Pathology, including Robin Stombler, Auburn Health Strategies, Major Cathie With, Legal Counsel, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, and Colonel Glenn Sandberg, Chief, Scientific Laboratory, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. |
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| AAAS Reception and Discussion – 4:00PM Sunday March 30 – Room 1235 |
“Science and Engineering in the Courtroom: Ethics and the Expert Witness” – Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of Washington and Director of the Federal Judicial Center and Mark S. Frankel, Ph.D., Director of the Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law Program, American Association for the Advancement of Science | |
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| AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY – DC CHAPTER |
Panel of local TV broadcasters Weather and You- A Town Hall Meeting |
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| American Society of Plant Biologists/Botanical Society of Washington/Virginia Native Plant Society/Maryland Native Plant Society |
1. Greg Zell A Case Study: The Challenge of Protecting Natural Resources in an Urban Environment 2. Jerry Dieruf GypCheck Pesticide Application for Gypsy Moth Caterpillars Suppression in the City of Alexandria, Virginia 3. Alain Touwaide, PhD, and Alice Tangerini Botanical Illustration: Past and Present 4. Marion Lobstein The Flora of Virginia Project: A Perspective of 401 Years of Exploration of Virginia Botanical Diversity 5. Rod Simmons A Survey of Native Oaks and Their Hybrids in the Greater Washington, D.C. Area 6. Kimberly L. Hunter PhD, and Richard B. Hunter Plants, Polyploidy, and Undergraduate Research at Salisbury University7. Mark Holland, PhD and Richard A. Henson PPFM bacteria: Plant symbionts with applications in agriculture 8. Emily N. Burnett, Kimberly Hunter and Richard Hunter Genetic Diversity of Liquidambar styraciflua in Cusuco National Park, Honduras 9. Katharine Spencer, Emily N. Burnett, Mary E. Cockey, Kimberly Hunter, Richard Hunter, and Katherine Miller Nordihydroguaiaretic Acid (Ndga) Localization and Quantification in Three Ploidy Levels of Larrea Tridenta |
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| American Society for Technical Innovation |
1. Thomas Meylan, PhD Can the features of elective virtual communities be used to create effective virtual workforces? 2. Gene Allen Simulation-supported Decision Making 3.Geoffrey P. Malafsky Simulation-supported Decision Making 4. F. D. Witherspoon High Velocity Dense Plasma Jets for Fusion Applications 5. D. A. Tidman and F. D. Witherspoon, Slingatron – A Hypervelocity Mechanical Mass Accelerator 6. James Jordan and James Powell Maglev Transport – A Necessity in the Age of No Oil 7. John Bosma Tech Futures 2008-2030 8. Richard Smith Micro- and Nanotechnologies for Near Term Medical Diagnostics 9. Jim Burke Scientific Leaders and the Workforce of 2015 10. Limor Schafman Distributed Business: How IPv6 Will Change Business and Government Operations |
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| Anthropological Society of Washington | 1. Martin C. Solano, PhD Sex Differences in Skeletal Trauma Among the 19th Century Working Class. 2. Ryan W. Higgins Limb Proportion Inheritance and Ancestry Determination from Fetal Crural and Brachial Indices 3. Marilyn R. London Complete Fusion of the Mandible to the Cranium During Childhood in an Eskimo from Southwestern Alaska 4. David R. Hunt, PhD and Deborah Hull-Walski, MSAll That Remains – Multidisciplinary Study of a Mid-19th Century Iron Coffin and Identification of the Individual Within 5. Lynn Snyder, PhD Faunal and Human Remains from a 2nd century BCE Well in the Athenian Agora; Evidence of Animal Sacrifice and Infanticide in Late Hellenistic Athens? 6. J. Christopher Dudar, PhD. Archaeological Discovery of a Previously Undocumented Case of an Anencephalic Infant from a 19th Century Upper Canadian Cemetery 7. Matthew W. Tocheri, PhD Concerning the Evidence for “Hobbits”: An Overview of Homo floresiensis |
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| Association for Women in Science – DC Metro Chapter |
Managing Your Career in Science Gretchen Schieber Useful Skills For an Industrial Career or Everyday Life. |
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| Association for Computing Machinery – DC Chapter |
Bill Spees, PhD Lightweight Java State Machine |
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| Biological Society of Washington | W. Ronald Heyer Can long-established, narrow-niche scientific societies such as the Biological Society of Washington survive the digital age? |
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| Chemical Society of Washington | Jesse Gallun and Jennifer Young Green Chemistry and the ACS Green Chemistry Institute |
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| Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), DC and Northern Virginia Sections |
1. Invited Talk by Frederika Darema Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems: a Transformative Paradigm 2. Ronald L. Ticker The US National Laboratory on the International Space Station 3. Gerard Christman Sr. In the Aftermath of the Indian Ocean Basin Tsunami: An Information Sharing Pilot Program in Support of Humanitarian Assistance / Disaster Relief 4. Tim Weil Securing Wireless Access for Vehicular Environments (WAVE): A Case Study of the Department of Transportation VII Project 5. Haik Biglari Past, Present and Future of Safety-Critical Real-time Embedded Software Development 6. Ashwin Swaminathan Digital Detective for Electronic Imaging 7. X. Zhu, Y. Yang,Q. Li, D. E. Ioannou, J. S. Suehle, and C. A. Richter High Performance Silicon Nanowire Field Effect Transistor and Application to Non-Volatile Memory 8. Boris Veytsman, Leila Akhmadeyeva, Fernando Morales, Grant Hogg, Tetsuo Ashizawa, Patricia Cuenca, Gerardo del Valle, Roberto Brian, Mauricio Sittenfeld, Alison Wilcox, Douglas E. Wilcox, and Darren G. Monckton Microsatellite Expansion: The Search for Underlying Pattern 9. Hojin Kee, Newton Petersen, Jacob Kornerup, Shuvra S. Bhattacharyya Synthesis of FPGA-Based FFT Implementations 10. Raj Madhavan, Stephen Balakirsky and Chris Scrapper, Intelligent Systems Division An Open-Source Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition 11. Kiki Ikossi, Antimonides for High Efficiency Solar Cells 12. Brian Borak, Dan Feng, John Kucia, and Dan Vlacich What it Takes to Design and Build a Successful Solar Home. |
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| Institute of Industrial Engineers, National Capital Chapter/Washington Chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences |
1. Douglas A. Samuelson Modeling Attention Management in Organizational Decision-Making 2. H. Ric Blacksten and Joseph C. Chang Fermi model estimation of illegal immigration deterrence as function of apprehension probability 3. Steven Wilcox GOSSIP: A Computational Model of Team-Based Intelligence Gathering 4. Pete Hull What Faith-Based Organizations Can Teach Us about Disaster Response: Post-Katrina Lessons Learned 5. Douglas A. Samuelson Agent-Based Simulation of Mass Egress from Public Facilities and Communities 6. Donald E. Crone Postal Automation and the Flats Sequencing System 7. Michael E. McCartney Project Management Shared Network Reporting System for Tracking Capital Investment Projects 8. Charles L. Hochstein Acquisition Cost Optimization Through Supply Chain Management 9. Joseph J. Scheibeler After Cost Review Process for Capital Investments |
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| Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences |
Erika Shugart Presenting Current Science: Lessons from the Marian Koshland Science Museum | |
| National Capital Section/Optical Society of America & IEEE/LEOS |
1. Invited Talk by Dr. Michael Haney Photonic Integrated Circuits: Ready for Prime Time? 2. Pavlo Molchanov, Vincent M. Contarino, Olha Asmolova Gated Optical Sensors 3. Dr. Spilios Riyopoulos Slow light propagation across coupled micro-laser arrays 4. Alexander Efros Multi-Exciton Generation by a Single Photon in Nanocrystals 5. Jeffrey O. White Continuous ‘system level’ scale for laser gain media 6. Emily Schultheis Machine Vision Assessment to Tomatoes of Unknown Diameter 7. Dr. H. John Wood, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Discoveries 8. Invited talk by Dr. Ken Stewart Mesh Filters for Infrared Astronomy 9. Geary Schwimmer, Tom Wilkerson, Jed Hancock, Jason Swasey, Adam Shelley, Bruce Gentry and Cathy Marx Holographic Scanning UV Telescope for the Tropospheric Wind Lidar Technology Experiment 10. Peter Blake, Joseph Connelly, Babak Saif, Bente Eegholm, Perry Greenfield, and Warren Hack Spatially Phase-Shifted DSPI for Measurement of Large Structures 11. Dr. Joseph Howard Optical Modeling Activities for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope: Overview and Introduction of Matlab based toolkits used to interface with optical design software 12. Dr. Raymond Ohl Recent developments in the alignment and test plans for the James Webb Space Telescope Integrated Science Instrument Module 13. Bert A. Pasquale and Ross M. Henry Functional Testing of Hubble Relative Navigation Sensor Flight Cameras 14. Dr. J.C. (Chuck) Strickland Fast Optical Processor for Laser Comm 15. Athanasios N. Chryssis, Geunmin Ryu and Mario Dagenais High Resolution Incoherent Optical Frequency Domain Reflectometry 16. Christopher Stanford, Mario Dagenais, Juhee Park, Philip DeShong An Etched FBG Sensor: Modeling Bio-attachment and Improving Sensitivity |
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| National Capital Society of American Foresters |
I. . Dialogue Among Natural Resource Societies in the National Capital Area Panel Includes Chris Farley Land Use, Forests and Agriculture in a Post-Kyoto Change Climate Agreement: Prospects and implications for natural resources management 2. Nicolas W. R. Lapointe American Fisheries Society Virginia Tech Non-indigenous species introductions – benefit or threat? 3. David L. Trauger The Role of Environmental Societies and Conservation Organizations II. . Society of American Foresters Science Exhibition and Showcase |
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| National Institute of Standards and Technology – Physics Department |
1. Jeff Cessna New Paradigms in Diagnostic and Therapeutic Nuclear Medicine, New Standards 2. Larry Hudson, Steve Seltzer, Paul Bergstrom, Fred Bateman, and Frank Cerra Ionizing Radiation Division, Physics Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology Standards for X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Security Screening Systems 3. Svetlana Nour, Matthew Mille, Kenneth Inn, Douglas W. Fletcher Population Radiation Measurement – the Monte Carlo option 4. Daniel S. Hussey Neutron Imaging: The key to understanding water management in hydrogen fuel cells |
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| NORTHERN VIRGINIA REGIONAL PARK AUTHORITY – MEADOWLARK BOTANICAL GARDENS AND POTOMAC OVERLOOK PARK |
1. Martin Ogle Birds of Prey of Virginia 2. Keith Tomlinson, Manager Meadowlark Botanical Gardens A Floristic Natural History of the Greater Washington DC Region in the Potomac River Basin |
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| Philosophical Society of Washington |
1. Joe Coates Homeland Insecurity 2. Kenneth Haapala Economics 21: America’s Post Industrial Economy |
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| Potomac Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society |
1. Gerald P. Krueger, Ph.D., of Krueger Ergonomics Consultants Effects of Health, Wellness and Fitness on Commercial Driver Safety: A Review of the Issues 2. Ronald R. Knipling, Ph.D., of Virginia Tech Transportation Institute What Does Instrumented Vehicle Research Tell Us About Crash Risk and Causation? 3. Christopher A. Monk, Ph.D. 4. David M. Cades, Stephen M. Jones, Nicole E. Werner, Deborah A. Boehm-Davis Knowing When to Switch Tasks: Effectiveness of Internal versus External Cues |
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| Science and Engineering Apprentice Program, George Washington University |
1. Kelly Colas, James Madison High School Virginia Heppner, James Madison High School Mentored by: Charlotte Lanteri, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, SS, MD Jacob Johnson, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, SS, MD Assessment of 96- and 384- Well Malaria SYBR Green I- Based Fluorescence Assay for Use in In Vitro Malaria Drug Screening 2. John Russo Jr., St. Vincent of Pallotti High School Mentored by: Heather O’Brien, and Dr. Marc Litz, ARL, MD Pulse Power Applications 3. Muneer Zuhurudeen, Eleanor Roosevelt High School Mentored By: Dr. Mostafiz Chowdhury, ARL-WMRD, Adelphi, MD A Study of the Scaling Relationships between Full-Scale and Sub-Scale Vehicle Ballistic Shock Response |
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| Washington Society for the History of Medicine |
Health and Disease in American Public Education Movies, 1930s-1950s A presentation of public health movies from the collections of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Selected and Presented by David Cantor for The Washington Society for the History of Medicine. |
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ABSTRACTS (organized by Affiliate)
AAAS DISCUSSION
ON SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING IN THE COURTROOM: ETHICS AND THE EXPERT WITNESS
| Reception |
| Science and Engineering in the Courtroom: Ethics and the Expert Witness
Speakers: Judge Barbara Jacobs Rothstein, U.S. District Judge for |
| In addressing an AAAS Annual Meeting, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer observed that the law “increasingly requires access to sound science because society is becoming more dependent for its well-being on scientifically complex technology.” A critical issue facing judges is how to distinguish between scientific evidence that should be admitted into a legal dispute and that which is unacceptable because of its poor scientific foundation. This session will discuss factors that judges rely on to make those decisions, and the role of the expert in presenting scientific and technical information in legal proceedings. When scientists or engineers engage the legal system as experts, they are subject to norms and practices not always familiar to them. This raises questions about how they can act responsibly in that setting. The session will identify ethical issues that have confronted experts recruited to participate in litigation, and the extent to which long-standing professional norms provide useful guidance. |
AMERICAN
METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY – DC CHAPTER
| Panel of local TV broadcasters, including Bob Ryan and Joe Witte, as well as Steve Zubrick, the Science and Operations Officer (SOO) at the Washington/Baltimore National Weather Service Forecast Office and Jason Samenow, Chief Meteorologist of the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang WEATHER AND YOU – A Town Hall Meeting |
| Weather is perhaps one of the most ubiquitous subjects of informal conversation. It affects just about everyone every day as they make decisions on whether to set forth for the day with umbrellas to preparing for an impending snowstorm, severe thunderstorms, flooding rains, etc., etc. This session is about, the nature, issues, and problems of observing and predicting the weather. The panel members will provide a brief overview of a relevant and topical subject. The remainder of the session and most important aspect of the Town Hall will be an open question, answer and discussion period. |
AMERICAN
SOCIETY OF PLANT BIOLOGISTS/BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON/VIRGINIA NATIVE
PLANT SOCIETY/MARYLAND NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY
| Greg Zell, Natural Resource Specialist, Arlington County, VA A Case Study: The Challenge of Protecting Natural Resources in an Urban Environment |
| Arlington County is in the process of completing a comprehensive Natural Heritage Resource Inventory (NHRI) of natural lands and public open spaces within a highly urbanized corridor. The County is approximately 40% impervious and is considered “built out” from a development standpoint. The project has collected data relating to local flora, fauna, geology, hydrology, and has documented significant remaining resources. The next step is to develop a County-wide Natural Resource Management Plan. Part I of the presentation will be an overview of the techniques used to collect natural resource data and will share some of the interesting results to date. Part II of the presentation will be a Roundtable discussion, where participants will be asked to provide insight, experience, and suggestions on what elements should be included in the development of a Natural Resource Management Plan and Policy. |
| Jerry Dieruf, Arborist/Gypsy Moth Coordinator, City of Alexandria Department of Recreation, Parks, and Cultural Activities, Park Planning Division GypCheck Pesticide Application for Gypsy Moth Caterpillars Suppression in the City of Alexandria, Virginia |
| Populations of Gypsy Moth Caterpillars surged throughout the Washington, D.C. area in 2007, causing widespread damage to native oak species and oak dominated forests. In Alexandria as throughout much of the region, oak species comprise the dominant vegetation of our forests. This presentation will include the reason for the application, the application coverage, follow-up survey of gypsy moth caterpillars, other variables affecting the gypsy moth population, results of the suppression program, and others’ experiences with Gypchek in 2007. |
| Alain Touwaide, PhD, and Alice Tangerini, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany Botanical Illustration: Past and Present |
| In the first part of this presentation, Alain Touwaide will examine the creation of ancient botanical illustration in classical antiquity, particularly the question of the supposed schematic nature of such representations in ancient Greek manuscripts, as well as the transformation of botanical illustrations from manuscripts to printed books during the 15th and 16th centuries. In the second part, Alice Tangerini will discuss the changes in the way contemporary botanical illustrations reproduce plants and communicate the knowledge contained in such representations to a world wide audience. She will devote a special attention to the methods of reproduction of illustrations as illustrated by the transformation from woodcuts and etchings to digital images to be consulted on the Internet. |
| Marion Lobstein, Associate Professor of Biology, NVCC The Flora of Virginia Project: A Perspective of 401 Years of Exploration of Virginia Botanical Diversity |
| Virginia has the greatest diversity of plant species for its surface area of all of the 50 states in the U.S. In this presentation, Marion Lobstein will discuss reasons for this diversity and botanical exploration in Virginia since the founding of Jamestown in 1607. In 1737, the Colony of Virginia had the first flora of any of the original thirteen colonies, The Flora Virginica by John Clayton in 1737, but the Commonwealth of Virginia has not had a modern flora since that time period. This presentation will cover the progress being made to produce a modern Flora of Virginia in the next three years. |
AMERICAN
SOCIETY FOR TECHNICAL INNOVATION
| Thomas Meylan, PhD EvolvingSUCCESS Can the features of elective virtual communities be used to create effective virtual workforces? |
Saturday 9:00AM Room 370 |
| Virtual communities are springing up as quickly as people can identify enough points of mutual identification to justify the establishment of a virtual meeting space. The communities being considered in this presentation are built around “elective” membership. People WANT to build software products on SourceForge. People WANT to play simple games together on Horse Isle. People WANT to formulate different methods of interaction on Second Life. The question is: Can virtual community models based on elective membership be transferred to workforce deployment needs? Three factors considered in this presentation are: 1) the intellectual price of entry into an elective community and how it relates to the financial costs of setting up an online, virtual workforce; 2) metrics of pleasure and fulfillment in elective communities, and how they relate to productivity and job satisfaction in virtual-but-definitely-real task-driven workforces; 3) structures, rules, customs and conformity enforcement procedures in elective communities that can transfer to virtual workforce environments. |
| Gene Allen, MSC.Software Corporation Simulation-supported Decision Making |
Saturday 9:25AM Room 370 |
| Engineering provides a Knowledge Base for decision making. An Engineering Knowledge Base is the culmination of education, training, and experience that provides insight and understanding of how things work or don’t work. A program’s Engineering Knowledge Base consists of the knowledge and expertise of all the personnel involved over the lifecycle of a program with all accompanying documentation. The majority of an Engineering Knowledge Base is learned from experience in testing and operations. However, learning from prototype testing and operational accidents/problems is both costly, time consuming, and risky. In the past, this has been an accepted cost of adopting new technologies, as it has been the only way we learn about what we do not know. The unanticipated and often non-intuitive results of new technologies are often realized in operations, and sometimes only after decades. This uncertainty is the result of combinations of factors or characteristics, all of which have natural ranges of variability. This variability and uncertainty has historically been taken into account through the use of safety factors, based on experience. The advances and availability of compute capability can be used as a substitute for the experience-based safety factors used in design. Virtual data can be generated by running multiple physics-based analyses of a parameterized computer model, varying parameters across their natural ranges with each run. This process provides an accurate simulation of reality. Results are a cloud of points with each point being an accurate result of that specific combination of variables. The simulation process includes as many variables as possible. A simulation consists of 100 analysis runs, sampling all variables using advanced Monte Carlo sampling methods. 100 analysis runs provides a simulation resolution equivalent to the resolution of inputs. This process minimizes the need for making initial assumptions, which are often a source of problems as people most often do not know what they do not know at the time of making their assumptions. Different correlation methods are used to filter the number of variables in the simulation result to those individual variables, or groups of variables, that are most significant. This provides information that can be used to understand what can happen. Additionally, automatic outlier detection can be used to quickly identify those combinations of variables what generate anomalies. The combination of 1) correlation information and 2) the knowledge gained through understanding outliers provides accurate input to the Engineering Knowledge Base that can be used for Decision Making. Simulation, using today’s readily available compute capability, is being used to learn and gain otherwise unavailable knowledge for making decisions. |
| F. D. Witherspoon, HyperV Technolgies Corp High Velocity Dense Plasma Jets for Fusion Applications* |
Saturday 10:15AM Room 370 |
| High velocity dense plasma jets are under development at HyperV Technologies Corp. for a variety of fusion applications. The initial motivation for this line of research was Magneto-Inertial Fusion using high density, high velocity plasma jets as standoff drivers to implode a magnetized plasma target. Additional applications include fusion reactor feuling, injection of angular momentum into centrifugally confined plasmas, high energy density plasmas (HEDP), plasma thrusters and others. The near term technical goal is to accelerate plasma slugs of density greater than 10^17 per cc and total mass above 200 micrograms to velocities above 200 km/s. The approach utilizes symmetrical injection of very high density plasma into a coaxial electromagnetic accelerator having a tailored cross-section geometry designed to prevent formation of the blow-by instability. The injected plasma is generated by an array of radially oriented ablative capillary discharges arranged uniformly around the circumference of an angled annular injection region of the accelerator, or by a similar array of small non-ablative parallel plate minirailguns now under development. We describe computer modeling and experiments to develop these plasma jets, including descriptions of an injection experiment currently underway at the University of Maryland, and an early test of jet merging using 64 capillary injectors to form an imploding ring of dense plasma. *Work supported by the U.S. DOE Office of Fusion Energy Sciences |
| D. A. Tidman* and F. D. Witherspoon** Slingatron – A Hypervelocity Mechanical Mass Accelerator |
Saturday 10:40AM Room 370 |
| The slingatron(1) is a mechanical mass accelerator that is dynamically similar to the ancient sling, but unlike the classical sling it appears capable of accelerating projectiles of large mass to extremely high velocity, possibly to above 10 km/sec. In this machine a projectile slides on its self-generated gas bearing in a steel accelerator tube that guides the projectile along a curved path that is typically circular or spiral. The projectile accelerates when the tube is moved with an inward component along the radius of curvature of the tube at the projectile location, i.e., along the direction of the centripetal force acting on the projectile so that work is done on the projectile. This motion of the tube can be implemented by mounting the entire curved tube on distributed swing arms that propel the tube around a gyration circle of relatively small radius without changing its orientation, i.e., the structure gyrates but does not spin. A projectile accelerating in a gyrating sling tube initially slides on its thin outer Teflon film. This film wears off, and evaporation of a polycarbonate layer (or energetic plastic) then provides a low friction gas film in the range from ~ 1 to many km/sec. Heat from this hot bearing gas does not have sufficient time to diffuse far into a projectile during its acceleration. For a phase-locked projectile accelerating in a spiral the acceleration time is the number of turns times the gyration period, e.g., 0.05 seconds for a 3-turn spiral with a gyration frequency of 60 cps. A theoretical model and experimental data also show that the projectile gas bearing is thicker than asperity heights on the steel track, so that sling-tube damage is avoided. For large projectiles, the bearing gas film is thicker than for small projectiles so that its viscous drag per cm2 on the track and the sliding friction coefficient are smaller. This occurs because the “residence time” of gas evaporated into the bearing of a large projectile is longer than for a small projectile. The slingatron mechanics is similar to rolling a ball bearing around in a circular frying pan (or sliding an ice cube in a cooled pan) in a horizontal plane and gyrating the pan around a small circle, except that the slingatron gyration speed is much higher, e.g., ~ 150 m/sec for a projectile velocity gain of ~ 1 km/sec per turn, and the projectile slides at high velocity and low friction along the curved path on its self-generated gas film. We will discuss the dynamics, mechanics, and some preliminary experimental results for this hypervelocity mass accelerator. *ALCorp, 6801 Benjamin Street, McLean, VA 22101, 703-790-0620, datidman@cox.net **HyperV, 13935 Willard Road, Chantilly, VA 20151, 703-378-4882, witherwspoon@hyperV.com (1)”Slingatron, A Mechanical Hypervelocity Mass Accelerator”, D. A. Tidman, Aardvark Global Publishing, 2007. A book available at www.slingatron.com |
| James Jordan and James Powell, Maglev-2000, Inc. Maglev Transport – A Necessity in the Age of No Oil |
Saturday 2:00PM Room 370 |
| World oil production will peak in the next few years and then steadily decline, causing prices to rapidly escalate far beyond the present $100 per barrel. To maintain affordable transport of people and goods in the oncoming Age of No Oil, a crucial requirement for the U.S. and World economy, new modes of transport that can operate without oil must be quickly developed and implemented on a large scale. The 3 new options proposed to date – biofuels, hydrogen, and coal-to-liquids – do not appear to be practical solutions. Biofuels are very limited in supply capability, and will cause major increases in food prices and World hunger, and seriously degrade long-term soil fertility. Hydrogen fuel requires an enormous increase in expensive electrical generation capacity, much greater than now exists. Coal to liquid fuel greatly increases greenhouse gas emissions and drastically accelerates global warming. Electrically powered transport can meet U.S. and World future transport needs in an affordable, energy efficient, and environmentally acceptable manner. Maglev transport will play a major role in electric transport. The advanced Maglev-2000 system which can transport passengers, highway trucks, freight, and passenger autos at speeds of 300 mph with much less energy usage and at much lower cost than present transport systems, is described. Implemented as a 25,000 mile National Maglev Network, using the rights-of-way along the Interstate Highways and existing railroad trackage, it would serve all major U.S. Metropolitan regions in a seamless high speed web. The first phase of the National Maglev Network, a transcontinental East-West and North-South routes could be operating by 2019 AD. The Network would be financed by private investment, with a payback time of 5 years, using revenues generated by transporting long-distance highway trucks. |
| John Bosma, NRAC, Arlington, VA Tech Futures 2008-2030 |
Saturday 2:25PM Room 370 |
| The key elements of tech trends influencing global security, economics and business through 2030 are discussed, covering the following nine major topics: 1) ‘Bio-fication’ and MEMS-ification of ‘primary industry’ processes: hydrocarbon energy mining, renewables (solar), farming and forestry, metals mining and metallurgy, metals/radionuclides cleanup, extremophile industrial biologies; 2) Conventional-oil exhaustion (50% drop by 2030?) – vs. massive North American hydrocarbon stocks for liquefaction; can US/Canada become ‘new Persian Gulf’? 3) Step-jump productivity/ROI improvements in ‘big iron’ industrial activities (fast intermodal shipping, solid free-form manufacturing…) will outrank IT whoopee; 4) ‘Big iron’ ops in extreme environments (deep offshore oil, Arctic oil and minerals, heavy lift (4000 tons) across tundra/wetlands, in-situ coal mining; 5) 4-5 orders-of-magnitude reduction in size-weight-cost of future military ops (including terrorist ops) from current state-of-the-art – e.g. 25-lb SUAVs (small unmanned air vehicles) crossed Atlantic unrefueled in Dec 1998, mass production cost <$15,000; 6) Personalized medicine (self-diagnosis via electronic/sensor-textile underwear, noninvasive wearable ultrasound, cheap personal medical imagers, global Web-enabled ‘on call’ medical expertise w/ ‘smart agent’ software assist, telemedicine; 7) Rapid development of poor-country Internet, telephony/WiMAX, women-owned startups, communications-based rural take-off – but medical MUST be solved; 8) Dirt-cheap space launch via all-mechanical Slingatrons (www.slingatron.com) – enables cheap missile defense, cheap distributed-aperture solar power satellites; 9) Downsides/’bad news’: high probability of 1-2 regional nuclear wars (Pakistan, Iran) and/or terror nukes in US, Europe (7-12 cities) – w/ TBD aftermaths but assuredly strong anti-nuclear, anti-terror tech, ‘defensive emphasis’/BMD drives. |
| Richard Smith, MS President Flexible Medical Sysems, LLC Micro- and Nanotechnologies for Near Term Medical Diagnostics |
Saturday 2:50PM Room 370 |
| Micro- and nanotechnologies are allowing university and lab scientists to create medical diagnostic capabilities never before seen. These new capabilities can facilitate the realization of telemedicine and make universal health care affordable. While these capabilities were once thought to be far in the future, commercial products are in the human trials stage right now. The CEO of a local medical diagnostics company will discuss the science, the commercialization process (including traversing the “valley of death”) and the remarkable near-term possibilities. |
| Jim Burke Manager Futures, Forecasting, and Change Management Northrop Grumman Scientific Leaders and the Workforce of 2015 |
Saturday 3:15PM Room 370 |
| This talk emphasizes that 2015 is not that far off, but that a lot can happen in eight years, especially in the workforce. The pace of change calls for attention to the trends that are driving change within technical organizations and the rest of the world. Some trends are micro-trends (e.g., the growth of self-storage businesses in the US), while others are macro-trends (e.g., population growth or decline). The three buckets of trends that will affect most scientific organizations in the next eight years fall are:
People People across the US and around the world, |
| Limor Schafman, Keystone Tech Group Fairfax, Virginia . Distributed Business: How IPv6 Will Change Business and Government Operations |
Saturday 3:40PM Room 370 |
| Central command and control is a concept of the past. We are seeing many technological developments and the human response to these new products and services that indicate a mind and behavioral shift taking place at a fundamental, root level. IPv6, the New Internet protocol is more than just an address structure. It is a mindset. Its impact on the social, mobile and connected world will alter how businesses and government agencies are structured, how employees work, how opportunity is identified and acted upon, and how value is brought to an organization. This presentation will discuss what IPv6 and other technologies mean to business operations, reasons for these changes and what the implications and opportunities for business and government can be going forward. |
ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF
WASHINGTON
| Recent Research in Human Skeletal Biology |
Sunday 2:00PM Room 330 |
ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE. DC-METRO
CHAPTER
| Managing Your Career in Science: This session will begin with an overview of current data on gender equity in science and the impact that workplace culture, climate, and policies have on the recruitment, retention, and success of women working in scientific disciplines. In this context, speakers from both academe and industry will address the skills necessary for success in building scientific careers beyond the bench with particular emphasis on the different expectations and challenges faced by women as they advance to managerial/professorial and executive/department chairperson roles. Speakers will discuss how to identify and use opportunities both to hone and expand the needed skill sets. The session will also highlight ways to successfully navigate career transitions, focusing on issues such as setting career goals, deciding when to make a career change, and identifying opportunities suited to individuals’ strengths and interests. The session will conclude with a moderated panel discussion, offering participants and panelists an additional opportunity to share insights and exchange ideas. |
Sunday 2:00PM Room 380 |
| Natalia Melcer-Program Officer, National Academy of Sciences Welcome and Introduction |
2:00PM Room 380 |
| Ruth Fassinger-Professor, Department of Counseling and Personnel Services, University of Maryland, College Park Surveying the Landscape for Women in Science |
2:10PM Room 380 |
| Gretchen Schieber-Vice President, Product Development, Adlyfe, Inc. and Rachelle Heller-Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, The George Washington University Skills for Succeeding in Science |
2:30PM Room 380 |
| Alicia M. Rodriguez-Certified Executive Leadership Coach, Sophia Associates and Leanne Posko-Managing Director, Community Partnerships, Constellation Energy Successfully Navigating Career Transitions |
Sunday 3:00PM Room 380 |
| Jennifer A. Hobin-Science Policy Analyst, Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Moderated Panel Discussion |
3:30PM Room 380 |
ASSOCIATION FOR
COMPUTING MACHINERY – DC CHAPTER
BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF
WASHINGTON
BOTANICAL
SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON (see American Society of Plant
Biologists)
CHEMICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON
| Jesse Gallun and Jennifer Young, ACS Green Chemistry Institute, American Chemical Society Green Chemistry and the ACS Green Chemistry Institute |
Sunday 11:00AM Room 310 |
| Green chemistry finds sustainable solutions through innovative technologies while preventing pollution, through the reduction or elimination in the use and generation of hazardous substances. The American Chemical Society Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) has a mission to advance the implementation of green chemistry and engineering principles into all aspects of the chemical enterprise. To achieve this mission, ACS GCI works in several strategic areas: research, education, industrial implementation, international collaboration, communication and outreach, and policy advocacy. A brief overview about ACS GCI and its activities will be shared, as well as opportunities open to you, such as grants, awards, conferences, teaching materials, and more. Since the green chemistry movement began in the early 1990’s, there are many real world examples of green chemistry, such as: new adhesives that mimic nature while eliminating hazardous chemicals like VOCs, redesigned pathways to important pharmaceuticals that significantly reduce the use of hazardous chemicals and generation of waste, and other consumer products that feature greener components and production. A number of these examples will be presented, with an interactive discussion of factors that may lead industry to utilize new green technologies or products. |
INSTITUTE OF ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS
(IEEE), DC AND NORTHERN VIRGINIA SECTIONS
| Invited Talk by Frederika Darema, NSF Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems |
Saturday 9:00AM Room 310 |
| This talk will discuss the Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems (DDDAS) concept, driving novel directions in applications and in measurements, as well as in computer sciences and cyber-infrastructure. DDDAS entails the ability to incorporate dynamically additional data into an executing application (these data can be archival or collected on-line), and in reverse the ability of the applications will be able to dynamically steer the measurement process. The dynamic environments of concern here encompass dynamic integration of real-time data acquisition with compute and data intensive -systems. Enabling DDDAS requires advances in the application modeling methods and interfaces, in algorithms tolerant to perturbations of dynamic data injection and steering, in systems software, and in infrastructure support. Research and development of such technologies requires synergistic multidisciplinary collaboration in the applications, algorithms, software systems, and measurements systems areas, and involving researchers in basic sciences, engineering, and computer sciences. Such capabilities offer the promise of augmenting the analysis and prediction capabilities of application simulations and the effectiveness of measurement systems, with a potential major impact in many science and engineering application areas. The concept has been characterized as revolutionary and examples of areas of DDDAS impact include computer and communication systems, information science and technologies, physical, chemical, biological, medical and health systems, environmental (hazard prediction, prevention, mitigation, response), and manufacturing, transportation and critical infrastructure systems. The talk will address technology advances enabled and driven the DDDAS concept, as well as challenges and opportunities, motivating the discussion with application examples from ongoing research efforts. |
| Ronald L. Ticker National Aeronautics and Space Administration The US National Laboratory on the International Space Station |
Saturday 9:20AM Room 310 |
| The International Space Station (ISS) is rapidly approaching the long-awaited completion of assembly in 2010. All US core elements have been integrated and tested on-orbit, and the attention of NASA has turned to deployment of the European, Japanese, and Russian laboratories. Section 507 of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 designated the US segment of the ISS as a “national laboratory”, opening up use to other US Government agencies, US private firms and US academic institutions. This paper summarizes strategy and plans for implementation of the ISS National Laboratory as well as applicable research and support facilities. The original 1984 vision of a robust, multi-mission space station serving as a platform for the advancement of US science, technology and commerce will soon be achieved. |
| Tim Weil – Associate (CISSP/CISA) Booz | Allen | Hamilton Securing Wireless Access for Vehicular Environments (WAVE): A Case Study of the Department of Transportation VII Project |
Saturday 10:00AM Room 310 |
| The Department of Transportation Vehicular Infrastructure Integration (DOT VII) program has paved the way for the Intelligent Transportation Systems of tomorrow. VII envisions a future in which intelligent vehicles routinely communicate with each other and the transportation infrastructure in real time. Booz Allen Hamilton has led the Systems Integrator’s role for building a model DOT VII network based on the deployment of network and software infrastructure using a newly published set of IEEE standards. The VII technical architecture is based on IEEE 1609 Wireless Access for Vehicular Environments (WAVE) standards which define an architecture and a complementary set of services that enable secure vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure wireless communication. The IEEE WAVE family of standards(1609) provide the foundation for a broad range of applications in the transportation environment, including vehicle safety, public safety, communication fleet management, automated tolling, enhanced navigation, traffic management and other operations. The recently published WAVE Networking standard (IEEE 1609.3) provides an Intelligent Transportation Systems framework from which a Proof of Concept VII Service Oriented Architecture, WAVE Networking Stack, and the Real-Time Messaging VII have been implemented. This VII model also includes a detailed description of the Publish / Subscribe MQ Architecture developed to support collection/parsing of vehicle probe data and the scheduling/delivery of standard SAE J2735 messages to vehicles in a limited connectivity environment. The suite of WAVE protocols provides application services and Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) communication channels, allowing secure messaging and application services between wireless roadside access points and vehicle radio transceiver units. This wireless security technology, IEEE 1609.2, WAVE Security Services for Applications and Management Messages, presents the VII program with Identity and Access Management challenges An examination of the working model will demonstrate the use of Mobile PKI to manage VII actors, messaging and applications using DSRC/WAVE communication services. The discussion will conclude with an overview of how the Communications Industry is positioned to take advantage of the IEEE 1609 standards for Application Services, IPv6 Networking and Multi-Channel Radio Operation. |
| Haik Biglari – Fairchild Controls CorporationPast, Present and Future of Safety-Critical Real-time Embedded Software Development |
Saturday 10:20 AM Room 310 |
| Safety-Critical systems are those systems whose failure could result in loss of life, cause significant property damage or cause damage to the environment. These complex systems tend to have sufficient kinetic or potential energy which can become uncontrollable and thus pose a hazardous condition. Therefore, the system controller must be designed in such a way as to guarantee system stability during all of the system operational modes. Furthermore, when a fatal fault occurs, the controller shuts down the system safely. This paper will present the evolution of software development for these systems, current certification issues, the gap that exists between systems engineering and software engineering disciplines, software reuse, use of productivity tools and the future of safety-critical real-time embedded software development. |
| Ashwin Swaminathan (University of Maryland, College Park) Digital Detective for Electronic Imaging |
Saturday 10:40 AM Room 310 |
| Electronic imaging has experienced tremendous growth in recent decades, and digital images including those taken by digital cameras have been used in a growing number of applications. With such increasing popularity and the availability of low-cost image editing software, the integrity of digital image content can no longer be taken for granted. Rapid technology development has also led to a number of new problems related to protecting intellectual property rights, handling patent infringements, authenticating acquisition source, and identifying content manipulations. In this presentation, we consider the problem of image acquisition forensics and introduce a fusion of a set of signal processing features to identify the source of digital images. We show that traces of the in-device processing operations such as color interpolation along with the noise characteristics of devices’ image acquisition process jointly serve as good forensic features to help accurately reconstruct the history of the input image to its production process and differentiate between images produced by cameras, cell phone cameras, scanners, and computer graphics. Through analysis and extensive experimental studies, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework for image acquisition forensics. (Include joint work with Prof. Min Wu, Prof. K.J. Ray Liu, Dr. Hongmei Gou, and Ms. Christine E. McKay.) |
| X. Zhu 1, 2, Y. Yang 1, Q. Li 1, D. E. Ioannou 1, J. S. Suehle 2 and C. A. Richter 2 High Performance Silicon Nanowire Field Effect Transistor and Application to Non-Volatile Memory 1. ECE Department, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA 2. CND Group, Semiconductor Electronics Division, NIST, Gaithersburg, MD 20899, USA |
Saturday 2:00PM Room 310 |
| We report the fabrication and characterization of double-gated silicon nanowire field effect transistors (SiNWFET) with excellent current-voltage characteristics, low subthreshold slope (~ 85mV/dec) and high on/off current ratio (~ 106). The silicon nanowire devices were fabricated by using a self-aligned technique with standard photolithographic alignment and metal lift-off processes, ensuring large-scale integration of high-performance nanowire devices. We have studied the effect of device structure and forming gas rapid thermal annealing on the nanowire transistor’s electrical properties. We attribute the excellent current-voltage characteristics displayed by our devices to the low interface state densities achieved by the above fabrication process. We also report non-volatile memory cells (NVM) based on these nanowires. The SiNWs are integrated into memory devices by using a self-alignment technique. The top gate dielectric, which surrounds most of the nanowire, consists of three stacked layers: blocking SiO2, charge-storing layer HfO2 and thin tunneling oxide. Prior to the SiNW growth a thermal SiO2 was grown on a p-type silicon wafer by dry oxidation to form the bottom-gate oxide of these dual-gated structures. The diameter of the SiNW is ~ 20 nm and the gate length ranges from 2 µm to 8 µm. When these devices are electrically characterized, a large threshold voltage shift is observed under voltage sweep of either the top or the bottom gate. The top gate control is superior to that of the bottom gate control as demonstrated by the large memory windows and large on/off current ratios (~107) observed in these devices. |
| Boris Veytsman(1), Leila Akhmadeyeva(2), Fernando Morales(3,4), Grant Hogg(3), Tetsuo Ashizawa(5), Patricia Cuenca(4) Gerardo del Valle(4), Roberto Brian(4), Mauricio Sittenfeld(4), Alison Wilcox(3), Douglas E. Wilcox(3) and Darren G. Monckton(3) Microsatellite Expansion: The Search for Underlying Pattern 1. George Mason University, MS 5A2, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA 2. Bashkir State Medical University, 3 Lenina Str., Ufa, 450077, Russia 3. University of Glasgow, Glasgow G11 6NU, UK 4. Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jose, Costa Rica 5. The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0539, USA |
Saturday 2:20PM Room 310 |
| Microsatellite expansion is the cause of a number of severe diseases like Fragile X, Huntington disease, Myotonic Dystrophy and others. An interesting common feature of the expansion in these case is the instability of the mutation: once expanded, the number of microsatellites continues to change in the patient’s cells. An understanding of the mechanism of microsatellite expansion will help in the prediction of the individual development of the disease and planning the medical care. Recently (J. Theor. Biol., v. 242, 401–408, 2006) we proposed a mathematical model to describe the mechanism of the microsatellite expansion and resulting distribution of repeats lengths in the patient’s DNA. Here we compare the theoretical predictions with the data on the repeat lengths of a wide group of patients having Myotonic Dystrophy I (DyM I). We find that the theoretical predictions agree fairly well with the clinical data. The distribution of repeats lengths is close to the one predicted by the mathematical model. We used the clinical data to estimate the theoretical parameters: the rate of increase of the number of repeats and the rate of widening the distribution. We find that while these parameters have large individual variations, the average values give reasonable predictions for the development of mutations. These values can be used to estimate the initial mutation (the number of repeats in the progenitor allele) and to predict the development of the disease. |
| Hojin Kee1, Newton Petersen2, Jacob Kornerup2, Shuvra S. Bhattacharyya1 Synthesis of FPGA-Based FFT Implementations 1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, USA. 2National Instruments Corporation, Austin, 78759, USA. {hjkee, ssb}@umd.edu, {newton.petersen, jacob.kornerup}@ni.com |
Saturday 2:40PM Room 310 |
| In this paper, we propose a systemic approach for synthesizing field-programmable gate array (FPGA) implementations of fast Fourier transform (FFT) computations. We also demonstrate these methods in the dataflow-based programming environment of LabVIEW FPGA, and through our experiments, we show efficiency levels that are comparable to, and in some cases better than, commercially-available intellectual property cores for the FFT. Our approach considers both cost (in terms of FPGA resource requirements), and per-formance (in terms of throughput), and optimizes for both of these dimensions based on user-specified requirements. By appropriately combining complementary forms of loop unrolling, we systematically achieve cost-optimized FFT implementations in terms of FPGA slices or block RAMs in FPGA, subject to the given throughput constraints. Furthermore, our approach provides the advantages of being able to optimize implementations based on arbitrary, user-specified performance levels with general formulations of FFT loop unrolling trade-offs, which can be retargeted to different kinds of FPGA devices. |
| Raj Madhavan, Stephen Balakirsky and Chris Scrapper, Intelligent Systems Division, NISTAn Open-Source Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition |
Saturday 3:00PM Room 310 |
| Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) represent an integral component of today’s manufacturing processes. They are widely used on factory floors for intra-factory transport of goods between conveyors and assembly sections, parts and frame movements, and truck-trailer loading/unloading. Automating these systems to operate in unstructured environments presents an exciting area of current research in robotics and automation. Unfortunately, the traditional entry barrier into this research area is quite high. Researchers need an extensive physical environment, robotic hardware, and knowledge in research areas ranging from mobility and mapping to behavior generation and scheduling. An accepted approach to lowering this entry barrier is through the use of simulation systems and open source software. This talk will present an overview of research and collaboration being undertaken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with a grant received under the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s New Initiatives Competition. It is our belief that competitions are an effective means of stimulating interest and participation among students by providing exciting technological problems to tackle. Under this effort, faculty members and their interested students from six universities in the Greater Washington Area (Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and Baltimore) were introduced to this time-critical research area through the creation of a factory automation regional competition and tutorial. Since all code used in these competitions is open source, participants are able to learn from their competitors and self-sustain their research in their areas of expertise. This talk will also outline the performance metrics that were used to judge the competition. The competition arenas and metrics used for scoring were specifically designed to create a “level” playing field for the various research disciplines. The specific metrics, the way in which the competition was run, and the future directions of the competition will be discussed in detail. Defects that were noted in the metrics will also be outlined. |
| Brian Borak, Engineering team student leader for the DC electrical systems on the 2007 University of Maryland Solar Decathlon team, Dan Feng, a recent graduate from the University of Maryland, John Kucia, one of the project managers on the 2007 University of Maryland Solar Decathlon team, and Dan Vlacich is a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., and a mentor to the 2007 University of Maryland Solar Decathlon team.What it Takes to Design and Build a Successful Solar Home. |
Saturday 3:40PM Room 310 |
| The Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an international competition where students teams build fully-functional 100% solar-powered homes. The students then compete in a week long competition on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to determine who has the best solar home. Homes are judged on a variety of criteria ranging from the amount of excess electricity produced, to heating and cooling comfort, to how far they can drive an electric car that is charged from the house. The University of Maryland has competed in all three Solar Decathlon events to date (2002, 2005, 2007) and recently placed 2nd in the world (and 1st in the United States) last October. This presentation will discuss the competition, what it takes to design and build a successful solar home, the student’s experiences and plans for future competitions. |
INSTITUTE OF
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS, NATIONAL CAPITAL CHAPTER/WASHINGTON CHAPTER OF THE
INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT
SCIENCES
| Computational Modeling of Decision-Making Chair / Organizer: Douglas A. Samuelson, Serco |
| Douglas A. Samuelson, Serco Modeling Attention Management in Organizational Decision-Making |
Saturday 9:00AM Room 120 |
| Consider how to improve organizational decision-making by streamlining the process of seeking and allocating the attention of top decision-makers. These decision-makers try to optimize the value they receive by allocating their attention, taking uncertainty into account. Establishing a “bidding” process for attention-seeking improves efficiency and reduces problems. Now consider agent-based models of teams of workers. Workers have skills and various numbers of units of work they can accomplish, per skill area, per time period. The version of the model in which problems arrive and drift through the organization’s space randomly until they encounter a team that can solve them appears to approximate – and explain – the behavior of the Cohen, March and Olsen Garbage Can Model. Other, more hierarchical versions are likely to deadlock, overwhelming the managers and unnecessarily idling many of the workers, in a manner that fits intuition for certain large, tightly controlled bureaucracies. Explicitly modeling the attention required by managers and supervisors to assign problems and monitor progress adds another level of complexity and realism. This approach promises a rich variety of interesting results. |
| H. Ric Blacksten and Joseph C. Chang, Homeland Security Institute Fermi model estimation of illegal immigration deterrence as function of apprehension probability |
Saturday 9:40AM Room 120 |
| While U.S. leaders and legislators demand that our Southwestern borders be secured and controlled to stop illegal immigration, operators and researchers express reservations as to how easily that can be achieved. Recidivism statistics and surveys suggest that once an alien decides to cross into the USA, he or she will persist until successful. Does this mean that deterrence is hopeless? We present a “Fermi” framework, implemented in Excel, to explore this question. Using educated estimates of economic variables, we project the reduction in economic immigrant demand, i.e., deterrence, as a function of probability of apprehension. |
| Steven Wilcox, Serco GOSSIP: A Computational Model of Team-Based Intelligence Gathering |
Saturday 10:20AM Room 120 |
| The Goal-Oriented Sales-Specific Information Processing (GOSSIP) simulation model is a prototype for computationally modeling task complexity and the effect of team communication on the performance of intelligence gathering and exploitation tasks such as selling insurance or finding terrorists. In GOSSIP, Kauffman’s NK model of environmental complexity meets the Garbage Can model (Cohen, March & Olsen, 1972) and the phenomenon of diffusion along social networks, thus allowing one to use the power of simulation modeling for performing organizational design and analyzing impacts on search performance for elusive targets. In lieu of employing social network analysis measures in regression models of organizational effectiveness data, GOSSIP models the information passing process and the complexity of the task directly, thus pointing the way to enhanced clarity in quantitative modeling and analysis. |
| Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Response Chair / Organizer: Douglas A. Samuelson, Serco |
| Pete Hull, Homeland Security Institute and Skills That Serve, Inc. What Faith-Based Organizations Can Teach Us about Disaster Response: Post-Katrina Lessons Learned |
Saturday 2:00PM Room 120 |
| Faith-based organizations (FBOs) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) stepped in to fill the gaps when the geographic scales, intensities, and durations of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita overwhelmed the existing disaster response resources. FBOs and NGOs undertook a surprisingly large, varied, and demanding set of activities with extraordinary effectiveness. They provided shelter, food, medical services, hygiene services, mental health and spiritual care, physical reconstruction, logistics management and services, transportation, children’s services, and case management. The FBOs’ and NGOs’ successes in providing these services are a stark contrast to the many chronicled deficiencies and failures of government during the catastrophic 2005 hurricane season. We will discuss these organizations’ successes and glean lessons that may make the nation better prepared for future disasters. |
| Douglas A. Samuelson, Serco Agent-Based Simulation of Mass Egress from Public Facilities and Communities |
Saturday 3:00PM Room 120 |
| We review computer simulation models of selected attack scenarios on civilian targets and of the effects of possible counter-measures. In particular, these models focus on representing mass egress from large facilities, following one or more detonations, to evaluate some proposed ways to facilitate evacuation and reduce casualties. This review focuses on models developed by Homeland Security Institute (HSI) and Redfish Group (Santa Fe, New Mexico) to analyze two venues: a sports stadium and a subway station. Innovations include an order-of-magnitude increase, relative to previous models, of the number of people represented (70,000 in the stadium), and new computational portrayals of crowd movement and explosions. These approaches appear to conform especially well to real events, according to their developers’ experiments and comparisons. We also discuss, more briefly, recent models of wide-area evacuations in response to wildfires and nuclear terrorism. We conclude that the development and analysis completed to date, while far from exhaustive, suffice to demonstrate the utility of models such as these for evaluating proposed countermeasures, for indicating policy and technology issues that should be analyzed further, and for response planning. We also address the unusual problems such models pose for validation and evaluation. |
| Papers of the Institute of Industrial Engineers/ Program Chair: Joseph Scheibeler |
MARIAN
KOSHLAND SCIENCE MUSEUM OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES
MARYLAND
NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY (see American Society of Plant
Biologists)
NATIONAL CAPITAL SECTION/OPTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
& IEEE/LEOS
NATIONAL
CAPITAL SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS
NATIONAL
INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY (NIST) – PHYSICS
DEPARTMENT
| Inside a Closed Box: Ionizing Radiation in Imaging Chair: Lisa Karam, Deputy Chief Ionizing Radiation Division, Physics Laboratory, NIST |
Saturday 2:00PM Room 330 |
| Daniel S. Hussey Ionizing Radiation Division, Physics Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology Neutron Imaging: The key to understanding water management in hydrogen fuel cells |
3:30PM |
| Since proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have high fuel efficiency and emit only water as a byproduct, they are an attractive alternative to the internal combustion engine. Water management in PEMFCs critically impacts fuel cell performance, durability, and materials of construction. Neutron radiography has been the only method able to measure, in situ, the trace amount of water produced and stored within standard, commercially viable PEMFCs. This talk will provide an overview of the PEFMC research performed at the NIST neutron imaging facility, ranging from the fundamental water transport in the membrane to the impacts of water on a fuel cell engine.byproduct, they are an attractive alternative to the internal combustion engine. Water management in PEMFCs critically impacts fuel cell performance, durability, and materials of construction. Neutron radiography has been the only method able to measure, in situ, the trace amount of water produced and stored within standard, commercially viable PEMFCs. This talk will provide an overview of the PEFMC research performed at the NIST neutron imaging facility, ranging from the fundamental water transport in the membrane to the impacts of water on a fuel cell engine. |
NATIONAL SCIENCE
FOUNDATION (NSF) OFFICE OF POLAR PROGRAMS PLENARY SESSION ON INTERNATIONAL
POLAR RESEARCH
| Fifty years after the International Geophysical Year, scientists around the world are now engaged in a coordinated program of International Polar Year (IPY) Research, Education and Outreach. Guided by the U.S. National Academies of Science “A Vision for the International Polar Year 2007-2009” report, U.S. scientists are joining in research partnerships with colleagues in 30 nations to improve our understanding of the world’s great ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland, to study how ecosystems and human institutions respond to climate change, and to advance our understanding of climate change and how it will evolve at a fundamental level. The National Science Foundation is the lead U.S. agency for the IPY and has worked closely with NASA, NOAA and many other U.S. agencies to build a common legacy. This keynote session will showcase several forefront research projects that exemplify the goals of U.S. and international IPY efforts. |
Saturday 11:00AM Room 375 |
| 1. Dr. Kelly Falkner, Program Director Antarctic Science Division NSF Office of Polar Programs |
Saturday 11:00AM Room 375 |
PLENARY SESSION ON TISSUE
OWNERSHIP: ETHICAL, LEGAL, AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS.
| Improved scientific understanding of genetic mechanisms, coupled with recent dramatic advances in technical capabilities, has put within our grasp the molecular fingerprints and “recipes” of all tissues, including those harboring disease. These genetic messages may remain intact in preserved tissues for long periods of time e.g., centuries. Currently, many millions of tissue specimens reside in hospital, clinic and research laboratories throughout the world. Deciphering the genetic messages in these tissues introduces questions of access, ownership, commercial capabilities, etc. Ethical, legal and sociological answers will influence the ultimate utility of such tissues and everyone has a potential stake in how these questions are answered. This session will put these general questions into perspective and will tease out individual cases. |
Saturday 4:00PM Room 1235 |
| Dr. William Gardner, Executive Director, American Registry of Pathology, IntroductionRobin Stombler President, Auburn Health Strategies, LLC Giving Yourself Away – A Patient’s Guide to Specimens Col. Glenn Sandberg, AFIP Tissue RepositoryMajor Catharine M With Tissue Ownership: Legal Considerations |
NORTHERN
VIRGINIA REGIONAL PARK AUTHORITY – MEADOWLARK BOTANICAL GARDENS AND POTOMAC
OVERLOOK PARK
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF
WASHINGTON
| Kenneth Haapala, President, Philosophical Society of Washington ECONOMICS 21: America’s Post Industrial Economy |
| The 20th Century was one of remarkable transformation for the American economy. Although it always remained a strong trading nation, in the early 20th Century the America changed from a primarily agrarian, rural economy to a primarily industrial, urban economy. By mid-Century the United States was the world’s leading industrial power. America is changing from an industrial economy into a post industrial economy – or more poetically stated: from a “perspiration economy” to an “inspiration economy.” Using established sources, the speaker will trace the important components of these remarkable transformations. He will emphasize certain characteristics that may surprise many and suggest what may happen as the transformation to a post industrial economy continues. |
POTOMAC
CHAPTER OF THE HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY
| A Mini-Symposium on “Human Factors and Driver Safety” |
Sunday 10:00 AM Room 330 |
| Gerald P. Krueger, Ph.D.,Krueger Ergonomics ConsultantsEffects of Health, Wellness and Fitness on Commercial Driver Safety: A Review of the Issues |
Sunday 10:00AM Room 320 |
| This presentation: (1) identifies the most common health and fitness concerns for commercial truck and bus drivers; (2) addresses the relationship of the most important health risks as they affect on-the-road driver safety; (3) provides a snapshot of the most promising occupational health and wellness programs that can be applied to alleviate many driver health concerns; (4) highlights case studies exemplifying successes by employers who have already successfully addressed important driver health and safety issues; and (5) offers suggestions on how government transportation oversight agencies can positively impact highway safety by setting the proper tone, and by pointing the way to templating programs to offer vast improvements to produce win-wins for transportation industries, highway safety advocates, and the driving public. |
| Christopher A. Monk, George Mason University Driver Interrupted: The Costs of Shifting Attention While Driving |
Sunday 11:00AM Room 320 |
| To best understand how people manage multiple tasks, and the costs of shifting attention between tasks, it is critical to understand how people resume suspended task goals after interruptions. Several studies have explored the characteristics of interruptions that make them most disruptive to resuming the interrupted task; however, there is little task resumption data directly connected to the driving context. There is ample evidence that people are attempting to optimize their time by talking on the phone, checking email, etc. while driving. This situation is potentially dangerous if the costs associated with shifting attention interfere with required reactions to roadway situations (e.g., reacting to unexpected object in the road). In this study, a desktop driving simulator was used to investigate how drivers react to an unexpected lane drift during an interruption (i.e., when attention was off the road). Results showed that driver reaction to the lane drift was affected by the presence of a cognitive task during the interruption. The implications of these findings for understanding the costs associated with drivers shifting their attention between the road and in-vehicle tasks will be discussed, as well as future research plans with this new paradigm. |
| David M. Cades1, 2, Stephen M. Jones1, Nicole E. Werner1, Deborah A. Boehm-Davis1 Knowing When to Switch Tasks: Effectiveness of Internal versus External Cues 1George Mason University, 2Correpsonding Author |
Sunday 11:30AM Room 320 |
| It is now commonplace in both our personal and professional environments to be performing multiple concurrent tasks. Sometimes people switch between tasks under their own volition (e.g., reach a good stopping point, finish the task), but other times they are forced to switch by some external cue (e.g. phone call, knock at the door). While research on task switching has shown that there is a time cost every time tasks are switched, it is unclear if there are any performance differences when these switches are forced as opposed to when a person chooses to switch tasks. The current research used a category naming paradigm in which participants had to generate words from four categories. In one condition they could switch between the categories whenever they wanted and in another condition they could only switch when cued by the computer. IN both conditions there was a time cost associated with switching categories that was longer than the time between words within a category. No differences, however, were found between these conditions in the total number of words generated or the time to switch categories. These results suggest that people were able to perform multiple concurrent tasks with equal proficiency regardless of whether they switched between them on their own or were explicitly told when to switch. |
SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING APPRENTICE PROGRAM, GEORGE
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
| John Russo Jr., St. Vincent of Pallotti High School Mentored by: Heather O’Brien, and Dr. Marc Litz, ARL, MD Pulse Power Applications |
Saturday 9:40AM-10:00AM Room 365 |
| A numerical simulation of a millisecond pulse width transmission line was modeled in PSpice. The numerical results were compared to a transmission line built using six capacitors each about 42degreesF. The numerical and measured results compared well. This transmission line was used to evaluate a single silicon-carbide (SiC) Gate Turn-Off thyristor (GTO) high-current pulsed power switch. The results to-date indicate that these new SiC devices can switch without damage, a 1 mSec, 350 A pulse, charged to 620 V. Further evaluation on this new test-bed will be pursued to identify the limits of these switches. |
| Muneer Zuhurudeen, Eleanor Roosevelt High School Mentored By: Dr. Mostafiz Chowdhury, ARL-WMRD, Adelphi, MD A Study of the Scaling Relationships between Full-Scale and Sub-Scale Vehicle Ballistic Shock Response |
Saturday 9:40AM-10:00AM Room 365 |
| When testing the potency of armor made to protect vehicles from bomb blasts, ammunition rounds, other dangers of war, and even more importantly, the soldiers inside, it can become very costly to perform tests on full-sized prototypes. An alternative is to conduct tests on sub-scale models because they are less costly to manufacture and easier to handle. However, determining whether sub-scale models will accurately predict the responses of full-scale prototypes seems to cause uncertainty. The efficient solution to this problem is to use finite-element model simulators, such as the program ABAQUS, to recreate real-life situations in order to test the robustness of the armor. This report is an analysis of the scaling methods used to design these simulations, and a test of their validity and effectiveness when predicting full-scale response during ballistic tests on armor panels. During experimentation, a full-scale model and a sub-scale model of the right-side panel of the SAC-11 vehicle were created with a replica scaling ratio of 1:3 and then tested using ABAQUS. Another case was created with full-scale thickness and threat, but with sub-scale geometry. When creating a life-like model in a computer simulator, it is important to address environmental conditions such as physical, material, loading, and boundary conditions. A force can be introduced in the ABAQUS code by applying amounts of pressure over a period of time to simulate ballistic impact. Material properties such as the modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s ratio, and density were also included in the ABAQUS code. Boundary conditions were also applied to the test panels in order to simulate forces on the model, such as weight, that were factored into the simulation in order to make it suitable. The data collected in ABAQUS was imported into MATLAB in order to compute each model’s Shock Response Spectra (SRS), or a plot of its maximum acceleration responses versus its frequency. The comparison plots of the SRS data proved that the replica scaling model (1:3) was an accurate representation of full-scale response at low and high threat velocities. |
VIRGINIA
NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY (see American Society of Plant
Biologists)
WASHINGTON
CHAPTER OF THE INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES (see
Institute for Industrial Engineers)
WASHINGTON
SOCIETY FOR THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE
| Health and Disease in American Public Education Movies, 1930s-1950s A presentation of public health movies from the collections of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Selected and Presented by David Cantor for The Washington Society for the History of Medicine. |
Saturday 9:00AM Room 380 |
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| This film presentation provides a selection of rarely seen public health movies released between 1938 and 1957. The presentation includes movies about cancer, tuberculosis, and ‘quackery’ aimed at a variety of audiences, and produced by an assortment of private, philanthropic, professional and governmental organizations. Together, they emphasize the importance to disease control of early detection and treatment; of seeking care from a recognized physician; and of avoiding ‘quack’ healers and home remedies. They encourage the public to learn medically-approved danger signals of disease; to go for regular medical examinations from a recognized physician; and to involve themselves in campaigns of medical education and outreach. Thus, they are as much about the marketing of medicine as they are about the education of the public. As such, they provide a window onto how orthodox American medical agencies sought to promote their own authority, expertise and cultural legitimacy in the twentieth century. |
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| Introductory Messages
Advertisements & Announcements Public Health Messages from the American Dental Association |
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| Main Program | ||
| Man Alive, 1952 (11:35 minutes) American Cancer Society Let My People Live, 1938 (13:20 minutes) National Tuberculosis Association Fraud Fighters, 1949 (15:50 minutes) RKO Pathe, Inc. Men of Medicine, 1938 (16:55 minutes) American Medical Association March of Time The Man on the Other Side of the Desk, 1957 (12:30 minutes) American Cancer Society |
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