Northern Virginia Engineering (NVE) will host its annual Graduate Programs Open House at the Northern Virginia Center on Tuesday, April 11 from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

NVE faculty will present information on the four engineering departments offered in the Northern Capital Region: Civil & Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical & Computer Engineering and Industrial & Systems Engineering. New graduate programs in Information Assurance will also be exhibited.

Prospective students speak with Tom Grizzard, director of the Civil and Environmental Engineering program, at 2005 NVE Open House
Graduate students from the VT Advanced Research Institute (ARI) and Northern Virginia Center will showcase their research in fields of bioinformatics, distributed generation systems, wireless communications, intelligent transportation, data visualization and others.

Refreshments will be served.  For more information on the event, please visit www.ari.vt.edu. Directions can be found at www.nvc.vt.edu.
~ ARI Relocates to Ballston ~
Having spent its first seven years of operation in Old Town, Alexandria, the Alexandria Research Institute recently relocated to Arlington, Virginia. The organization is now positioned on the seventh floor of Ballston Point at 4300 Wilson Boulevard, at the corner of North Glebe and across the street from the National Science Foundation.  ARI also embraced a new name and is now known as the Advanced Research Institute.

 

“This new location provides easier access both to and from the DC community,” said Rahman.  “And an added advantage is that Virginia Tech’s Falls Church facility is just two Metro stops away, versus a longer commute from Alexandria.”

An Open House that served as an unveiling of the new offices was held on December 7. It provided local industry leaders with a glimpse of the research activities that take place within the walls of ARI.  VT-ARI also hosts seminars, workshops and lectures by its own faculty, government program managers, industry researchers and overseas visitors.

~ Director Elected to Prestigious Board ~
Dr. Saifur Rahman, the founding director of ARI, was elected Vice President of the IEEE Products, Services and Publications Board for 2006.  In this position, he will preside over a board which sets policy for all of IEEE and assist in overseeing publications revenue of approximately $130 million.  

Dr. Rahman sits on the IEEE Board of Directors and the IEEE Executive Committee and organized the 2004 IEEE Conference on the Hydrogen Economy.  ARI was awarded “Friend of IEEE” at the IEEE National Capital Area Annual Awards Banquet in April of 2005.

 
Saifur Rahman being presented with Friend of IEEE Award by Amarjeet Basra, Director of IEEE, Northern Virginia Section

~ MANIAC Challenge Under Construction ~

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $450,000 Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS) grant to Luiz DaSilva, an ECE associate professor at ARI, and Allen MacKenzie, an assistant professor of ECE in Blacksburg.  The professors are using the grant to develop a contest called the Mobile Ad Hoc Networking Interoperability And Cooperation (MANIAC) Challenge.
Luiz DaSilva is a co-creator of MANIAC Challenge

The goal of the competition is to advance networking techniques and algorithms and provide opportunities to study actual, uncontrolled, ad hoc networks.  During the competition, users will make their own choices in relation to the use of bandwidth, power, routing decisions, etc.  Throughout the process, personal tradeoffs between self interest and common network goals will be tracked.  This information will then be examined to determine what incentives will encourage future users to provide services to other nodes.

“There is currently no such competition in the wireless networking field,” said DaSilva. “We were inspired by open competitions in the areas of robotics, software engineering, and automotive design that are successful in energizing students to perform hands-on work while advancing the state of research,” he added. “These competitions are very motivating, not to mention fun. Also, failure often teaches us more than success and implementation is always more convincing than simulation. The kind of informal exchange of ideas that occurs naturally in a competition like this tends to move research forward in unexpected ways.”  

The MANIAC Challenge is scheduled to take place in 2007.  For more information, please contact Luiz DaSilva at ldasilva@vt.edu.

~ Hagerman Interviewed on Wave Energy ~

In November, Lindsay Carswell, Associate Producer & Web Writer of ScienCentral News, interviewed George Hagerman on wave energy for a story that aired on ABC just before Christmas. The Web version is posted at here.

In the interview, Hagerman discussed an Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) study that found wave power could be an economical alternative to the world’s shrinking supply of fossil fuels. "Through the study, we estimated that by harnessing just 15 percent of its incident waves, America could produce the same amount of electricity as all the conventional hydroelectric dams throughout the U.S." This is enough to power more than 30 million homes each year, with very limited impact upon the environment.

 

                                     

                                     George Hagerman is a research associate at ARI

In the interview, Hagerman discussed an Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) study that found wave power could be an economical alternative to the world’s shrinking supply of fossil fuels. "Through the study, we estimated that by harnessing just 15 percent of its incident waves, America could produce the same amount of electricity as all the conventional hydroelectric dams throughout the U.S." This is enough to power more than 30 million homes each year, with very limited impact upon the environment.

The EPRI wave energy study was funded by EPRI, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and state energy agencies and utilities from Maine, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. An overview of this study and an ongoing tidal current energy study has been posted by the Center for Energy and the Global Environment (CEAGE) here.

CEAGE is a research and educational center that examines issues related to energy and energy’s role in the global environment. Its mission is to promote cooperation among diverse groups interested in sustainable energy development, and to act as a catalyst for developing solutions to environmental problems in many regions of the world. For more information on CEAGE, please visit www.ceage.vt.edu.

 
~ Zaghloul Heads Conference ~
Amir Zaghloul, professor of electrical and computer engineering, served as General Chair of the 2005 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium and URSI National Radio Science Meeting.  The conference was held in Washington , DC July 3-8, 2005 and Bill Davis, professor of  electrical and computer engineering in Blacksburg, served as Vice Chair.  

The symposium lasted six days and included approximately 1800 oral and poster presentations on antennas, propagation, and electromagnetics.  Approximately 1700 people attended the symposium, which is known on a worldwide scale as one of the best conferences in the fields of antennas, propagation, and radio science.

Zaghloul was recently elected to a three-year term on the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society AdCom and serves as a member of the IEEE Publication Services and Products Board.    

~ Rahman Awarded Loring Professorship ~

In December, Saifur Rahman received the distinct honor of being the first Virginia Tech faculty member to be awarded the Joseph R. Loring Professorship of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The 2003-2005 dean of the College of Engineering, Dr. Hassan Aref, nominated Rahman to this position after agreeing with the recommendations of the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Honorifics Committee and the College of Engineering ’s Honorifics Committee.

                      

From left to right: College of Engineering Dean Richard Benson, Joseph R. Loring, Saifur Rahman and Jim Bohland, Executive Director of the National Capital Region

Having joined Virginia Tech in 1979 as an assistant professor, Rahman was promoted to associate professor in 1983 and professor in 1987. He became the founding director of ARI in 1998 and he started directing the Northern Virginia Division of Engineering in 2003.  Rahman is an internationally known researcher in the areas of electrical power, specializing in alternate energy sources. His contributions range from pioneering work in microprocessor control of power systems to solar and wind energy systems, the  hydrogen economy and protection of critical infrastructure.

The award is named in honor of Joseph R. Loring, who is a 1947 graduate of the ECE department.  Loring is the founder, chairman and CEO of LORING, a worldwide engineering firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. He was inducted into Virginia Tech’s Academy of Engineering Excellence in 2001 and is a member of the Ut Prosim Society, whose members make it possible for future generations to live out the university's motto "That I May Serve.”

~ DRR Presents in Bangladesh ~

Fred Krimgold and Natasha Udu-gama of the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) program and ARI director Saifur Rahman participated in the First Bangladesh Earthquake Symposium in Dhaka, Bangladesh December 14-15, 2005.  The conference was supported in part by the Virginia Tech-BUET University Partnership for Seismic Vulnerability Reduction for Bangladesh. 

Fred Krimgold, Natasha Udu-gama, M.P. Singh and Saifur Rahman at First Bangladesh Earthquake Symposium in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Krimgold, the director of DRR, and Rahman presented two keynote lectures entitled "National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Programming: The Ups and Downs of the US Experience”, and “Impact of Natural Disasters on Critical Infrastructures" respectively. Research Associate Udu-gama gave a presentation on "Informing the Poor: Appropriate Information Communication Technology for Disaster Information Management in Urban Slum Communities."

The aim of the symposium, organized in association with the Bangladesh Earthquake Society and Department of Civil Engineering at BUET, is to bring professionals from Bangladesh and other countries together to present and discuss various topics related to earthquake disaster mitigation.

For more information on DRR, please visit www.ari.vt.edu/drr.

          

 

VT-ARI

4300 Wilson Blvd.

Suite 750

Arlington, VA 22203

P: 703.528.5500

F: 703.528.5543

                

 

NVE News is published three times a year.  To contact the editor, please email: schanning@vt.edu.

Past editions may be found at the following website:

www.ari.vt.edu

 

 

                                     

 

Northern Virginia Center

7054 Haycock Road

Falls Church, VA 22043

P: 703.538-TECH

F: 703.538.8320