After six months of nearly round-the-clock work by consultants and campus planners, Nebraska Innovation Campus’s final business development strategy and campus master plans were presented and approved today by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.

Lincoln, Neb., November 20th, 2009 —

(read more UNL News Release)

For more information about Nebraska Innovation Campus and to view the most up-to-date versions of the plans, go to http://innovate.unl.edu.

Bloody morning

Early this morning, I woke up full of hope that I can get my professors to endorse me in finding a job. There were three persons in my list: Ma’am Bernadette Duran, Ma’am Philipina Marcelo, and Engr. Josefin De Alban. As I was leaving the house, my nose bled, it bled that it ruined my shirt. I entered the house again to look for a roll of tissue paper. I’ve been idle for about 10 minutes with a tissue paper stuck in my nose, thinking if I should change my “ironed” shirt or not… not. After this blood bath, I do not want to waste anymore time so I left for school. It was nice to be there again after several months.

Shocked

I met Sir Chao and asked if Ma’am Duran is available, he said “Teka, tignan ko.” He invited me inside the faculty room and told me to come up and meet her. I did and I am very happy to see her again, she’s very busy answering problems from a book. I asked her if she could endorse me to my employers if I happen to dazzle them with my lousy resume, she obliged. While she was filling up my post-it pad disguised as a slam book, she asked if I took the board exams. I told her I did not. “Pero sabi nila nag-apply ka daw,” she said.  “Yes ma’am,” I answered. She told me with her signature worrying voice that I should’ve taken the board exams because I was counted as one that took but failed. Kinabahan ako bigla. I told her that I really do know that I was considered absent that day and that I am not counted as one that took. “Hindi, hindi.. kasama ka pa rin dun..” she said. Namutla ako. Patay ako nito sabi ko sa sarili ko. Even though she ended my day early, she is still our sweet and very thoughtful Ma’am Duran.  I thanked her and left. I love you Ma’am Duran.

The moment with Sir De Alban

I wanted to see Ms. Philip Marcelo next but they said she’s not there yet so I decided to look for Sir De Alban. The Dean’s Office is always a busy place and I asked if the Dean was there, the man behind the counter said “Oo, kausap si Regent.” I waited outside of the Regent’s Office and waited for Sir De Alban. As I was standing outside, Ma’am Duran’s powerful words keeps marqueeing through my head like Jollibee’s electronic machine that slides “Welcome to Jollibee.” I felt very guilty as I was thinking how the Department struggles to bring back its glory like the old times, of our batch’s goal to up the UST’s ChE Board Exams as we celebrate its 75^th year of foundation, and above all this, my incompetence. My eyes were teary what the hell, I tried not to cry.

Finally, Sir De Alban’s business with the regent is over so he invited me inside his office. “Yes?” he asked. I don’t know what to say. I asked him if he could give me his contact information for my invisible employers. He said “Ok.” with a question mark look in his face. Realizing that I need to introduce myself, I told him that I am a chemical engineering graduate and I am one of his students before in PGC (Philippine Government and Constitution). His face brightened, he asked, “Wa, haha, kumusta ang board exams?” I don’t remember how I responded but I know I was crying. I told him how I was feeling of not taking the board exams and that my incompetence made my department a little less proud – that’s what I think. He did a good job of cheering me up; he shared to me a line in his speech written on a paper when he was appointed Dean, my mind was preoccupied with a lot of things at that moment that I forgot what it said, though I know it is for the engineering students who did not do well in the Board Exams, lol. I thanked him as he advised me to take Spanish lessons.

Our cheerful Regent

I talked to the Regent next. I never thought that the Dean’s Office is a very cheerful place to be. He cheers almost everyone in the office, and the students. He was leaving the office so I tried to catch him – not “to catch” literally. When I finally caught up top him, “Father, pwede po ba kayong makausap?” I said. “Bakit gusto mo na ring mag-pari?” he asked. “Naku hindi po!” sigaw ko, hindi ko alam kung bakit pasigaw ang reply ko. I told him about what I’m feeling that time, and asked for his advice on what to do to make up. As we where going downstairs he was met by a group of students who probably knows Father since the beginning of time, just kidding. I didn’t get any advice but he assured me, “Hayaan mo kakausapin ko si Ma’am Duran.” Naku father wag po, wala po siyang kasalanan!, sabi ko na naman sa sarili ko. I saw that he was busy with other things so I said thanks and left.

Philippines

I was looking for Ma’am Philip, so I decided to visit kuya Jay’s lab and ask somebody. I met kuya Jay and told him everything that happened, he’s always our kuya Jay, lol. Kuya Jay wag ka na! Hahaba pa kwento ko o! He told me to visit TARC and see Ma’am Philip for myself. I did. I went to TARC but I am doubtful that she is in the unversity so I called Paolo, and asked for Ma’am Philip’s number.

“Hello, Paolo?”

“Ui, Armel! Anu ng nangyari sa’yo?”

(Madami) “Wala. Andito ako sa UST, may number ka ba ni Ma’am Philip?”

“Oo”

“Pa-send naman Paolo ha? Thanks. Bye!”

“Ok bye!”

I called Ma’am Philip but no answer so I texted her. Hello Ma’am Philip. ^^

God..

I don’t know where to go to, so I went to the chapel to reflect. I went inside and sat at the front. I cried. I said sorry many times. Sorry that I doubted. Sorry that I never asked for His help. I thanked God… thanked Him for my family in ChE that continues to support us even after our failures, even after our graduation. I remembered what I said at the Mr. ChES Personality Q&A on what to do if I win the competition. I told them that I’ll motivate other ChE students to be active in ChES activities. I won, but I never did what I said. I promised to do something for my ChE family, to my fellow chemical engineering students, to the people who put their trust to us, their encouragements, and their little push at the back that keeps us moving. After an hour of recurrent flashbacks, and guilt, I did a big genuflect and left for PRC.

Please Reconsider Cir

I went to PRC to inquire about what they do to determine the passing rate of the Board Exams. I asked if they include those who applied but did not take the board exams. Simple lang yung sagot nung mamang napagtanungan ko, “Hindi, hindi kasama, absent ka lang.” I told him about what I went through earlier in the morning. “Talaga po?,” I said waiting for his assurance. “Oo, ang tanging hindi lang pwede eh yung application, wala ng bisa yun!,” he assured. I said, “Umiyak ako kanina sa harap ng Dean, daig ko pa yung bumagsak sa board exams.” Tumawa siya. I felt relief. Smiling, I went straight home to write about this, still on my bloodied shirt.

Chemical engineering largely covers the design, improvement and maintenance of processes involving chemical or biological transformations for large-scale manufacture. Chemical engineers have to ensure that processes are operated safely, sustainably and economically. Get more information from these books at the Library.

Albright’s chemical engineering handbook TP151 A342	Chemical process calculations : lecture notes TP155.7 A837	Encyclopedia of reagents for organic synthesis QD77 E56	Fundamentals of environmental chemistry TD193 M266
Guidelines for hazard evaluation procedures TP155.5 G946	Guidelines for the management of change for process safety TP150 S24 G946	Handbook of fuel cells : fundamentals technology and applications TK2931 H236	Incidents that define process safety TP155.5 A868
The management of chemical process development in the pharmaceutical industry RS403 W178	Thermal safety of chemical processes : risk assessment and process design TP150 S24 S872	Wind energy : renewable energy and the environment TJ820 N431	A working guide to process equipment TP157 L716

Chemical engineering is a field that is catching a lot of attention from people who are interested in being a part of how things work and how things are made. Chemical engineer jobs invite people to design structures and other items that include roads, bridges, buildings, tunnels, dams and water systems. Civil engineering is one of the most highly-regarded, reputable, and oldest engineering professions that exist. People who pursue civil engineer jobs need to be committed to finding out the best way to design things, following through to make them work, and determining how to prevent the structures from failing.

Chemical engineers are responsible for the availability of the modern high quality materials that are essential for running an industrial economy. Chemical engineers can make processes more cost effective or more environmentally friendly or more efficient. Chemical engineering involves a lot of hard work and innovation. There are also good sites to about chemicals

Chemical engineer job or civil engineer job? Both fields of engineering need to have a solid aptitude for science and understanding the mechanics of how things work, as well as how to change them to make them stronger or better in the future. Graduates of a program in civil engineering or chemical engineering can expect to find a lot of different opportunities available in their area.

Chemical Engineers and GPS
Chemical engineering is a very large discipline and all expert areas under it require specific equipment, tools and gadgets in order to run or operate the process. Personally, I used GPS to travel to certain unknown destination and also to marked important points of location. For some, GPS might be an alien for you but you’ll need it very much, depending on your job scope. It will safe you a lot of hassle if you are traveling. There are various types of GPS with numerous features and models. You can choose the GPS based on the types (hand held, car, cellphone, laptop, watch, nautical) or outdoor type (Garmin hand held personal navigator or Uniden 28 Mile GMRS Radio 2 Pack with Charging Cradle and Battery Packs) or special touch hand held GPS system.

Chemical engineer jobs involve people who have skills and training in many different fields of engineering that may include mechanical, electrical, civil and structural, combining all of them to design and create solutions. Chemical engineering is a profession whose practitioners convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the designs and operation of plants and equipments to perform such works. In general, a chemical engineer is someone who applies and uses the principles of chemical engineering in any of the various practical applications, primarily with the study of the design, manufacture and operation of plant and machinery in industrial, chemical and related processes.

Read About Internationa study programs and also read about Aroma therapy courses Australia and Energy engineering courses Australia

ChemBot Unveiled

CNET News (10/15, Katz) reports on the “shape-shifting ChemBot” that “looks like the love child of a beating heart and a wad of Silly Putty.”  It is the product of a contract awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office to iRobot.  The maker “along with University of Chicago researchers, showed off the oozy results at the Iros conference (the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) in St. Louis this week.  DARPA envisions the palm-size ChemBot as a mobile robot that can traverse soft terrain and navigate through small openings, such as tiny wall cracks, during reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions.”  The robot “inflates and deflates parts of its body, changing size and shape — and scaring the living daylights out of us.  We don’t know exactly when ChemBot will join the Armed Forces, but we can only beg:  please, oh please, keep it away from us.”

Reposted from the October 15, 2009 ASEE First Bell briefing.

The Publications Division of the American Chemical Society provides the worldwide scientific community with a comprehensive collection of the most cited peer-reviewed journals in the chemical and related sciences.  In addition to 34 research journals, the society also publishes the premier weekly newsmagazine of the chemical enterprise, Chemical & Engineering News.  With the ACS Journal Archives, ACS Publications provides searchable access to over 130 years of original research in chemistry, including more than 750,000 articles dating back to the inaugural volume of the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1879.

The peer-reviewed journals of ACS publish cutting-edge articles across a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines—agricultural science, biotechnology, analytical chemistry, applied chemistry, biochemistry and molecular biology, chemical biology, chemical engineering, computer science, crystallography, energy and fuels, food science, environmental science, inorganic and nuclear chemistry, material science, medicinal chemistry, organic chemistry, pharmacology, physical chemistry, plant sciences, polymer science, and toxicology.

You can learn more about this database from its About Us page or begin searching the database at ACS Publications.

The ACS Publications Database is one of many information resources brought to you by the Brown Science and Engineering Library!  Ask for a demonstration of this database or about other resources that can help you work faster, smarter and better!

(Use of this database from this address restricted to University of Virginia users only.  Please contact a librarian for assistance, if you are having trouble connecting.)

Since my contribution to PALATE PRESS, I have developed a nice working relationship with my editor for the piece, Arthur Przebinda of winesooth.com. Over the weekend, he contacted me about an experiment he had performed looking at the temperature in wine shipping containers left in hot conditions. He wrote up the experiment for winebusiness.com, and you can find it here:

http://www.winebusiness.com/news/?go=getArticle&dataid=67958

A few more details about my back-of-the envelope analysis, for the scientifically inclined:

Assumptions (mostly made for simplicity):

• The liquid in the bottle is 750 mL (~0.75 kg) and has the same heat capacity as water, 4184 J/(kg*K) (Wine is 85-90% water)
• A wine bottle is a cylinder 27 cm long and 6 cm diameter
• The cylinder is encased in a 1 cm layer of styrofoam, thermal conductivity 0.033 W/(m*K)
• The liquid in the bottle is well-mixed (bouncing around in a truck, sure, why not?). This is important because it drastically simplifies the problem. It assumes that the temperature throughout the container is the same. Good thing, too, because I HATE cylindical coordinates!
• The initial temperature of the wine is cellar temperature, here approximated to 16C (60.8F)

Sample calculations. This was literally done on the back of an envelope.

Using the surface area, heat capacity, and thermal conductivities, plus the heat transfer coefficient of air, I was able to model this as a heat-transfer resistance problem. There are two resistances to heat transfer in series, convection from the air and conduction of the styrofoam. By combining the resistances you can treat them as one total resistance. This resistance relates to the heat flux into the container. The heat flux multiplied by the surface area and divided by the heat capacity of the fluid will give you the temperature change.

Since this system is not at steady state (that is, the temperature is changing with time), it can be modeled as a first-order differential equation:

This leads to an exponentially decaying increase in temperature (shown in the graph at winebusiness.com), the time constant of which (r) depends on the resistance (convective and conductive) and heat capacity and amount of fluid (750 g of wine vs. 1 gram of air).

Basically, air heats up a lot faster than liquids at a certain volume because (1) there is much less of it to heat up, and (2) energy transferred to gas is more efficiently displayed as a temperature increase than in liquids (particularly water, which has a hydrogen bond structure such that much of the energy input will go into breaking hydrogen bonds instead of making molecules move faster).

Arvind Kumar Mungray, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat, Chemical Engineering

Sanjaykumar Rameshbhai Patel, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat, Chemical Engineering

Meghal A. Desai, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat, Chemical Engineering

Throughout the summer and fall, the External Relations office puts together a high-quality annual report highlighting some of the most exciting stories and research in the college from the past year. The entire report is available via PDF, and I encourage you to view the publication this way as the photos (by Madison photographer David Nevala) are spectacular in the innovative layout by EER designer Phil Biebl.

The short articles I contributed are available below. I’m particularly pleased with the Materials Science and Engineering section, though all of the stories address critical research in energy, healthcare, manufacturing and accessibility.

**

Chemical and Biological Engineering

Exploiting E. coli for producing ethanol

A giant vat of plant material covered in E. coli may not be appetizing, but it does hold promise for producing abundant, renewable energy. The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) is supporting researchers in a variety of disciplines working to convert cellulosic biomass into advanced biofuels.

For two years, the GLBRC has funded Assistant Professors Christos Maravelias and Jennifer Reed, who are developing computational approaches to help increase
the amount of ethanol that E. coli can produce.

Every plant synthesizes a type of carbohydrate called cellulose, making it the most abundant organic material on the planet. Found in inedible parts of plants, cellulose is composed of a high-energy sugar called glucose, which can be fermented in tanks with E. coli or other bacteria. Enzymes in the bacteria break down glucose, producing ethanol as a byproduct of the fermentation process.

Reed’s and Maravelias’ models help narrow the field for researchers searching
for an optimal ethanol-producing strain of E. coli. Reed and her team start by looking at the E. coli genome and identify the enzymes and the biochemical reactions particular enzymes can catalyze. She then models how cells re-route metabolism when particular enzymes are added or removed. Maravelias and his team are working to include regulatory networks into the models. Regulation determines which enzymes are expressed in certain conditions, such as increased or decreased oxygen environments, which in turn affect bacteria cell behavior.

Thousands of modified bacteria strains are possible, and Reed and Maravelias can make hypotheses about which strains would make the most ethanol. This
narrowing of the field saves time and resources for their GLBRC collaborators
experimenting with actual bacteria.

Reed says the partnership with GLBRC is mutually beneficial. “This is a great opportunity to work with people who are experts in microbiology and understand regulation and metabolism in E. coli,” she says.

Electrical and Computer Engineering

New framework yields robust circuits

New generations of powerful integrated circuits, which drive most electronic devices, are produced every few years, and in each generation, the circuit components become smaller and smaller. The ever-decreasing size of components presents new design challenges for developers that can result in fabrication imperfections, especially as circuit components approach the nanoscale and become less tolerant of these imperfections. The low tolerance may mean the variations in the performance level could be too significant, making the circuits difficult to mass-produce and send to market for use in products ranging from computers and cell phones to television sets and cars.

Correcting imperfections is difficult because circuits include as many as billions of tiny components that may execute billions of commands per second—meaning developers are challenged to pinpoint exactly where and when imperfections occur. It is important, then, to prevent manufacturing imperfections early in the design process.

Assistant Professor Azadeh Davoodi has developed a mathematical framework for
fabricating integrated circuits that are robust with respect to manufacturing imperfections. The framework gives developers a chance to prevent some imperfections before even creating a prototype, which could improve the integrated design process overall. Her framework is unique because it requires very little information about the manufacturer’s processes to make robust predictions. Often, manufacturers do not keep or release detailed data on their processes, and the new framework will allow designers to create circuits with fewer manufacturing errors—without knowing details about those errors.

In the next year, Davoodi plans to expand her research to creating “debugging” tools that could reduce the number of circuit prototypes developers have to create. Davoodi will research the root causes of component failures and generate predictions about future failures. This work could help developers more quickly advance circuit designs to mass fabrication. A grant from the National Science Foundation supports Davoodi’s research.

Curved photodetectors sharpen images

Professor Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma, Erwin W. Mueller and Bascom Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Max Lagally and University of Michigan Professor Pallab Bhattacharya have developed a flexible light-sensitive material that could revolutionize photography and other imaging technologies.

When a device records an image, light passes through a lens onto a photodetector array—a light-sensitive material like the sensor in a digital camera. However, a lens bends the light and curves the focusing plane. In a digital camera, the point where the focusing plane meets the flat sensor is in focus, but the image becomes more distorted the farther it is from that focal point. That’s why some photos can turn out looking like images in a funhouse mirror. High-end digital cameras correct this problem by incorporating multiple panes of glass to refract light and flatten the focusing plane. However, such lens systems—like the mammoth telephoto lenses sports photographers use—are large, bulky and expensive. Even high-quality lenses stretch the edges of an image somewhat.

Inspired by the human eye, Ma’s curved photodetector could eliminate that distortion. In the eye, light enters though a single lens, but at the back of the eye, the image falls upon the curved retina, eliminating distortion. “If you can make a curved imaging plane, you just need one lens,” says Ma. “That’s why this development is extremely important.”

The team creates curved photodetectors with specially fabricated nanomembranes— extremely thin, flexible sheets of germanium, a very light-sensitive material often used in high-end imaging sensors. Researchers then can apply the nanomembranes to any polymer substrate, such as a thin, flexible piece of plastic. Currently, the group has demonstrated photodetectors curved in one direction. Ma plans next to develop hemispherical sensors.

Vestas partnership powers wind energy research

A recent partnership between the College of Engineering and Vestas, the world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, promises to propel wind energy research and education at UW-Madison. Under the partnership, which began in spring 2009, Vestas will provide funding to support as many as 10 graduate and undergraduate students working on wind technology projects. The company also is establishing a research and development office in Madison that will enable its researchers to work with faculty and students to conduct sponsored research projects and assist with technology transfer.

“Wind energy is a rapidly growing source of new power generation around the world,” says Professor Thomas Jahns (left), who co-directs the Wisconsin Power Electronics Research Center and helped establish the partnership. “Key partnerships such as this one provide win-win opportunities for our faculty, students and industry partners to accelerate the development of advanced wind power technology.”

Vestas plans to support professorships at UW-Madison that will encourage
innovative research and development of new curriculum materials in the alternative energy field. The ultimate objective is to use this new partnership as a foundation for launching a new multidisciplinary research center focused on integrating wind power and other renewable energy sources into the electric utility grid.

The Vestas/UW-Madison partnership already yielded a major grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for developing a new wind energy curriculum. In addition to Jahns, Professors Chris DeMarco (right) and Giri Venkataramanan (center), and Associate Professor Bernie Lesieutre and Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences Assistant Professor Ankur Desai are participating in this initiative.

“The Vestas partnership is an exciting addition to the range of energy research and education at the college,” says Dean Paul Peercy. “Once we solve energy storage issues, wind power could supply as much as 20 percent of the nation’s energy needs by 2030. Our students will be highly motivated to participate in this growth industry.”

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Facilitating trust between virtual and local ICUs

For a nurse monitoring patients in an intensive care unit, or ICU, an extra pair of eyes is likely welcome—even if those eyes belong to a doctor or nurse in another room.

A virtual ICU is a room either on-site at a hospital or in another hospital or company, where physicians and nurses monitor computer screens displaying information about patients. Virtual ICU physicians and nurses, who have critical care certification and experience, are connected to patients via video and audio feeds that allow them to carefully watch patients 24 hours a day and alert local ICU staff of any changes. Virtual ICUs, which have emerged in the last decade, act as a supplement to local hospital ICU staff members. Approximately 300 virtual ICUs exist and are connected to more than 2,000 ICUs nationwide.

As the technology continues to gain popularity, virtual ICU producers and users are
asking questions about how best to integrate virtual ICUs with local ICUs, especially when one virtual ICU serves multiple hospitals. Procter & Gamble Bascom Professor in Total Quality Pascale Carayon is researching this issue in collaboration with Associate Professor Doug Wiegmann, Professor of Medicine Ken Wood and Research Scientist Peter Hoonakker.

Supported by the National Science Foundation, Carayon and her team from the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement are gathering data from five virtual ICUs about how virtual and local ICU staff develop trust and share information about ICU patients. Carayon and her team have developed a software tool that monitors ICU tasks, and the team will interview nurses and virtual ICU managers to learn how patient care decisions are made, how the two staffs manage conflict and whether nurses believe patient care is what it should be.

After the data are gathered, the team will evaluate how the use of virtual ICUs can be improved. Examples could include having the virtual and local ICU staffs meet in person or making video and audio feeds two-way to further facilitate communication.

Encoding events improves product service

Selling a product isn’t the only way manufacturers can generate income. Many also
rely heavily on revenue from after-sale service plans, which are maintenance plans
to prevent and fix product malfunctions. After-sale service care can make up as much as 50 to 70 percent of a company’s total revenue, and accurate tools to help manufacturers develop appropriate maintenance schedules are crucial. Associate Professor Shiyu Zhou is researching fundamental, cost-efficient methodologies for manufacturers to deliver optimal after-sale service care to their customers.

Zhou has developed techniques for GE Healthcare to help the company conduct aftersale service for complex medical equipment such as MRI or CT machines. These types of machines generate data logs that record everything that happens, from turning on the machine and taking an image to a critical failure in a specific mechanical component. Zhou, in collaboration with University of Iowa Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Assistant Professor Yong Chen, encodes the data from those logs into a mathematical model that can predict a failure. The prediction allows maintenance technicians to either prevent the failure or have a spare part on hand to quickly repair the machine when a failure occurs.

The specific model Zhou has developed is a kind of survival model, which is a statistical technique widely used in reliability engineering. The model can quantitatively describe the relationship between non-failure events, called benign events, and critical failure events recorded in the logs. Manufacturers often assume that benign physical events affect machine failures, and Zhou’s research has proven this to be true. Supported by the National Science Foundation and GE Healthcare, Zhou is currently working to improve the model to identify the exact benign events that affect prediction accuracy. He is also working to identify optimal maintenance strategies based on the model’s predictions.

Breast cancer prediction tool personalizes treatment

No woman wants to hear a radiologist say an abnormality has been spotted on her mammogram, but if an abnormality is present, many radiologists recommend
a biopsy. A final determination on whether the abnormality is cancerous can take weeks—an agonizing amount of time for a woman and her family.

Assistant Professor Oguzhan Alagoz is working to give radiologists more information that could alleviate some of this distress and prevent unnecessary biopsies. In collaboration with Radiology Associate Professor Elizabeth Burnside, Alagoz has created diagnostic models that produce a probability of cancer based on a woman’s individual attributes and risk factors.

Using this model, a radiologist could tell a woman that the abnormality has, for example, a 10 percent chance of being cancerous, so if the woman is advised to undergo a biopsy, she will understand the realistic likelihood of cancer.

Supported by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, Alagoz’s model goes beyond calculating cancer probability and actually helps radiologists determine whether to recommend a biopsy. The model relies on sequential decision techniques, which account for decisions that are made multiple times and have a cascading effect, such as an abnormal mammogram prompting a woman to have another mammogram in six months. The model has shown that in general, radiologists recommend far more biopsies and short term follow-ups than necessary, especially for older women, who are more at risk for biopsy complications than are younger women.

Alagoz’s overall objective is to expose medical researchers to engineering tools and techniques to help clinicians tackle complex healthcare issues. Along with the breast cancer model, Alagoz is also researching optimal, personalized screening schedules for women and why certain demographics of women suffer from higher breast cancer mortality rates.

Additionally, Alagoz has begun to develop models for colorectal cancer screening, and, like his breast cancer research, he will investigate how often and with which technologies screenings should be conducted.

“My models will help clinicians provide both evidence-based and personalized medicine,” says Alagoz. “We have to remove inefficiencies from the healthcare system, and I think industrial engineering can play a big role in that. We can truly make a difference.”

Materials Science and Engineering

Permanently polarized materials: Potential power for tiny devices

For his PhD at Georgia Institute of Technology, Assistant Professor Xudong Wang
created a piezoelectric nanogenerator that potentially could run small devices. Now
at UW-Madison, Wang is continuing his work by researching a new material that could make the nanogenerator more powerful and efficient.

Wang’s nanogenerator currently is composed of zinc oxide nanowires that produce
10 nanowatts per square centimeter with a very low efficiency. With support from the National Science Foundation, Wang is now developing ferroelectric materials that could produce nanowires with 10 times the electric potential of the original zinc oxide ones. The increase occurs because the crystal of a ferroelectric material is made of spatially unbalanced atoms that produce automatic, permanent polarization in the material. When Wang introduces strain inside this unbalanced crystal, the polarization is enhanced, creating a significant electric potential.

This high electrical potential could convert mechanical energy from sources as varied as wind, car engines, breathing or body movements into electricity that could then power a small device. Very little mechanical energy would be needed to power the new nanogenerator because even a small amount of displacement has a large effect at the nanoscale—a theory Wang intends to prove in his lab.

Fabricating the new nanowires is more challenging than fabricating zinc oxide nanowires. To grow the new materials, Wang uses chemical vapor deposition, which involves vaporizing a source material in a furnace and condensing it over a substrate, and hydrothermal techniques, which involve mixing and sealing crystals in a water solution and heating the solution until it decomposes into the desired crystal.

Despite the complicated processes, Wang has confidence in the new nanowires, each one of which is 10,000 times smaller than a human hair. “The goal is to make a real nanodevice to power things like microelectromechanical systems, transistors, biomedical devices, sensors or robots,” he says. “The new generator could serve as an unlimited battery.”

Smaller isn’t always better: Catalyst simulations could lower fuel cell cost

Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Dane Morgan and Materials Science Program PhD student Edward Holby have found that smaller isn’t always better. Morgan is researching how particle size relates to the overall stability of materials, and he has developed a computational model to help reduce catalyst degradation, an important step in making fuel cells a viable, widespread technology.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that facilitate a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, producing electrical power and forming water. In the type of fuel cells Morgan is researching, called proton exchange membrane fuel cells, or PEMFCs, hydrogen is split into a proton and electron at one side of the fuel cell (the anode).  The proton moves through the device while the electron is forced to travel in an external circuit, where it can perform useful work. At the other side of the fuel cell (the cathode) the protons, electrons and oxygen are combined to form water, which is the only waste product.

One of the hurdles in producing commercial fuel cells is the degradation of the catalyst added to aid the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. Current fuel cells use platinum and platinum alloys as a catalyst, but the metal is expensive and not very abundant. To maximize platinum use, researchers use catalysts made with metal nanoparticles, sometime just a couple of nanometers in diameter. These tiny structures have a lot of surface area to aid the fuel cell reaction.

However, platinum catalysts this small degrade very quickly. This means the fuel cell doesn’t last long, and current estimates project that fuel cells have to function for 5,000 hours to be practical. Morgan’s model shows that if the particle size of a platinum catalyst is increased to four or five nanometers, which is still only approximately 20 atoms across, the level of degradation significantly decreases. This means the catalyst and the fuel cell as a whole can continue to function for much longer.

Morgan is working in collaboration with Professor Yang Shao-Horn from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 3M and the U.S. Department of Energy fund the model, which will be especially useful to scientists exploring platinum alloy catalysts.

Harvesting sunlight with carbon nanotubes

A new alternative energy technology relies on the element most associated with climate change: carbon. Assistant Professor Michael Arnold (above) is researching how to create inexpensive, efficient solar cells from carbon nanotubes,
which are 1-nanometer sheets of carbon rolled into seamless cylinders. Many researchers are studying how to use nanotubes for mechanical and electronics applications, but Arnold is one of the first to apply them to solar energy.

“We are developing new materials and methods to create scalable, inexpensive, stable and efficient photovoltaic solar-cell technologies,” Arnold says. “Semiconducting carbon nanotubes have remarkable electronic and optical properties that are ideally suited for photovoltaics, so this is a good starting point.”

Carbon is a promising choice for solar cells because it is an abundant element, and carbon nanotubes have excellent electrical conductivity and strong optical absorptivity. Most current solar cells use silicon, which converts 10 to 30 percent of sunlight absorbed into electricity. This is a good rate, but silicon cells are expensive. Arnold hopes to achieve comparable efficiency for less cost.

To create the new solar cells, Arnold and his students grow nanotube structures and then separate the useful semi-conducting nanotubes from undesirable metallic ones. During the process, they wrap the tubes in a polymer to make them soluble and put them into a solution, which they can spray in a thin film onto transparent indium-tin-oxide coated glass substrates. Then, they deposit an electron-accepting semiconductor and a negative electrode on top of the nanotubes to complete the entire cell.

Arnold, who is funded by the National Science Foundation, is currently studying how charge is generated in the nanotubes in response to light and how different electron-accepting materials affect the efficiency and speed of the separation of that charge.

Mechanical Engineering

Multi-university alliance helps STEM students with disabilities

Enabling choice for people with disabilities is at the core of Professor Jay Martin’s work with the Midwest Alliance. People with disabilities are severely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields due to perceptions that STEM work is not accessible. To address this issue, three universities are working together to brainstorm the system changes necessary to allow students with disabilities to make informed choices about careers in STEM fields.

The collaboration among UW-Madison, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Northern Iowa is known as the Midwest Alliance. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the collaboration began in 2005 and is the fourth project of its kind in the country. Since the alliance formed, it has offered mentoring, internship and placement support, and enrichment camps to students with disabilities in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois.

Martin originally joined the collaboration to provide a technological perspective. Martin, who is also the director of the UW Center for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology, has been the principal investigator for the Midwest Alliance since 2007.

His extensive experience in designing devices for people with disabilities complements the accessible systems and services expertise of the other alliance partners. One recent project he and his students developed is a reading device that uses a Nintendo Wii remote as an infrared camera to project text onto any surface, enabling people in wheelchairs to more easily read.

In addition to devices that improve daily life for people with disabilities, Martin and his students also design recreational technologies to enhance quality of life. Their projects include an advanced lightweight, modular wheelchair with a hybrid power system and airbags that could go as fast as 18 miles per hour and a sit-ski used in the 2009 American Birkebeiner national cross country race.

“The objective of our work at UW-Madison is to enhance the interaction between the person and the technology so that the technology will in fact allow the person more choice than they’d have without it,” Martin says.

“Laser tweezer” could assemble the semiconductors of the future

Nanomembranes are thin, tiny building blocks that can be moved and assembled by a laser beam that acts like a tiny construction crane—a process called optical trapping or “laser tweezing.” Assistant Professor Ryan Kershner is developing innovative optical trapping techniques to manipulate large-area planar objects with sub-nanometer precision large-area planar objects. These techniques could pave the way for a variety of new devices.

Kershner is experimenting with tiny glass beads that he can be move and attach by an infrared beam to a nanomembrane suspended in fluid. The attached bead is easier to manipulate than directly moving the nanomembranes because the silicon membrane scatters the beam of light—a phenomenon that has not yet been explained by optical trapping research.

Kershner is currently working with a silicon nanomembrane developed by Erwin W. Mueller Professor and Bascom Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Max Lagally and his team. Once the bead is attached, Kershner can move the nanomembrane via two techniques: The bead can be fixed at the focus of one laser beam and a second holographically-generated beam can move the membrane around it, or a hologram can be produced that makes and controls an array of laser beams that manipulate the membrane in multiple ways.

Kershner’s team uses the array technique to control and manipulate the membranes in three dimensions. To control the laser, Kershner and his students designed an optics system that directs a fiber laser to a spatial light modulator (SLM) and generates a hologram, which controls how the light is propagated in three dimensions. The light is then reflected off the SLM into the microscope where Kershner guides it to the nanomembranes.

Traditionally, laser tweezers are used as a sensitive measurement tool, but Kershner has expanded their use to assembling objects for a variety of potential applications, including nanostructured films, semiconductors, electronics and biological sensors.

A new view of internal combustion

A leader in spark ignition and diesel engine research, the renowned UW-Madison Engine Research Center (ERC) includes seven faculty and almost 60 student researchers whose research ranges from in-cylinder combustion, fluid mechanics and heat transfer to engine aftertreatment systems.

One major area of research in the ERC is optical diagnostics, and three ERC faculty members are using lasers to “view” internal combustion—a traditionally invisible process that is, in many ways, not well understood.

Essentially, fuel enters the engine cylinder and burns, producing work and some unintended gaseous emissions. However, researchers don’t know exactly what happens to the fuel during this process since it’s difficult to see inside a cylinder during combustion.

A better understanding of the combustion process could make it possible to design more efficient, low-emission engines. Using advanced laser diagnostics and optical engines—which include parts made from sapphire and fused silica—Professor Jaal Ghandhi, Associate Professor Scott Sanders and Assistant Professor David Rothamer are obtaining detailed measurements that offer new insights into the combustion process.

One of their approaches is planar laser-sheet imaging, in which they “stretch” a laser beam into a sheet and pass it through a quartz ring that forms part of the engine cylinder. A camera fixed outside the engine images through a mirror and window in the piston as the combustion happens.

They also apply tomographic imaging, a technique widely used in medical imaging.  Numerous beams from a custom-built laser form a grid within the engine cylinder, and advanced computers subsequently reconstruct images from the multi-beam data. In addition, the group uses high-speed visualization techniques to view the natural light from the combustion process and understand its macroscopic properties.

Using these approaches, the group investigates engine processes by measuring gas composition, velocity and temperature, as well as liquid fuel and solid soot properties within the engine cylinder. Currently, their focus areas include ultra-high-resolution imaging and developing novel approaches for temperature imaging using ceramic phosphorescent nanoparticles.

The professors say their work benefits from collaboration with the entire ERC. “We can compare our optical measurements to computations by other ERC faculty and increase the fidelity of available computational models,” says Rothamer.

Sanders agrees. “Our optical work, coupled with the capabilities of the entire ERC, makes us a unique package unlike any other American university.”

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