Upcoming Events

• IEEE Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturer Series

  

• Date: 11:45 AM Friday,

  March 14th, 2014

• Speaker: Dr. V. John Mathews of The University of Utah
• Location: 

  Promega BioPharmaceutical Technology Center

  Room Number: 122

  5445 E Cheryl Pkwy

  Fitchburg,  Wisconsin

• To sign up for this meeting, click
  here.

  Note:  Meeting is FRIDAY.

Topic:
Restoration of Motor Skills in Patients with Disorders of the
Central Nervous System

Recent technological innovations such as functional neural
stimulation (FNS) offer considerable benefits to paralyzed
individuals. FNS can produce movement in paralyzed muscles by the
application of electrical stimuli to the nerves innervating the
muscles. The first part of this talk will describe how smooth
muscle movements can be evoked using Utah slanted electrode arrays
(USEAs) inserted into the motor nerves of the peripheral nervous
system. The standard 4 x 4 mm USEAs contain 100 electrodes of
varying lengths. Implantation of a USEA in a peripheral nerve
allows highly selective electrical access to individual and small
groups of axons. We will review approaches for designing
asynchronously interleaved stimulation signals applied via
individual electrodes in the arrays to evoke smooth,
fatigue-resistant force that closely resembles normal motor
function. The second part of this talk will describe efforts to
decode cortical surface potentials, recorded with dense grids of
microelectrodes. Decoding human intent from neural signals is a
critical component of brain-computer interfaces. This information
can then be used to control the muscles in tasks involving
restoration of motor skills or to control a robot that performs
desired tasks. We will discuss recent work on decoding neural data
collected from patients implanted with microelectrode arrays. The
talk will conclude with a discussion of some of the current
research challenges in this area.

Biography: Dr. V. John
Mathews is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
the University of Utah. His research interests are in nonlinear
and adaptive signal processing and application of signal
processing techniques in audio and communication systems,
biomedical engineering, and structural health management. He
chaired the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at
the University of Utah during 1999-2003. Dr. Mathews is a Fellow
of IEEE. He served as the Vice President (Finance) of the IEEE
Signal Processing Society during 2003-2005 and the Vice President
(Conferences) of the Society during 2009-2011. He is a past
associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing,
and the IEEE Signal Processing Letters and the IEEE Journal of
Selected Topics in Signal Processing and currently serves on the
editorial board of the IEEE Signal Processing Magazine. He was a
recipient of the 2008-09 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the
National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India, and the
Utah Engineers Council’s Engineer of the Year Award in 2011. He
serves now as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Signal
Processing Society for 2013 and 2014.

Section News

Chris Latimer Talk Review (Provided
by Tom Kaminski): 

Chris discussed
his
research on understanding how anthropogenic factors affect the
behavior, energetics and survival of wildlife.  He has
installed RFID tracking devices on a number of bird feeders in
both populated and unpopulated areas around the Madison
area.  He utilized tiny RFID devices that were attached to
the legs of wintering birds in the area.  The tiny devices
had to be a small fraction of the weight of the birds, no small
feat for chicadees weighing about 15 grams.  Under the
assumption that one RFID tag hit represented a single seed removed
to a surrounding tree to eat, he could estimate the caloric intake
for the bird and relate it to survival.  He also reported on
similar studies that identified social cliques among wintering
birds.  Chris’s talk highlighted technology that is now
commonly applied to wildlife studies and made it clear that the
use of technology will increase in the future.

Distinguished Lecturer Visit 

Dr.
V. John Mathews’ visit on March 14th is an opportunity for those
Madison IEEE Section members interested in his research.  His
lecture in Madison is the last stop on a tour that includes
Minneapolis and Rochester, Minnesota and Ames and Iowa City,
Iowa.  Because of his travel schedule, the meeting is the
second FRIDAY,
not our usual third-Thursday of the month.  Dr. Mathews’
lecture series is in part sponsored by the IEEE Signal Processing
Society through its Distinguished Lecturer Series.  His visit
also coincides with a visit from Alkesh Patel, IEEE Region 4
Central Area Chair.  Alkesh will be joining us at the meeting
to learn about the IEEE Madison Section and to help us with IEEE
Section management.  Alkesh has been an active member and
officer for the IEEE Rock River Section
adjacent to our southern border. 

IEEE-Madison Section
Connections 

The
IEEE-Madison Section has been approached by 
INCOSE (Link Here), the
International Council on Systems Engineering, Chicagoland Chapter
to participate in joint activities.   According to the web site, their mission is “to
share, promote and advance the best of systems engineering from
across the globe for the benefit of humanity and the
planet”.   According to INCOSE members, the potential
IEEE Societies of common interest are Aerospace and Electronic
Systems, Circuits and Systems, Control Systems, Components,
Packaging, and Manufacturing Technology, Engineering in Medicine
and Biology, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Product Safety
Engineering, Reliability Society, Systems, Man, and Cybernetics
and Vehicular Technology.  Please contact Tom Kaminski (email
address below) if you are interested in organizing joint
activities with INCOSE.

Regular Meetings

Membership Upgrades

About IEEE

Madison IEEE Section

The IEEE-Madison Section of the IEEE is a section in Region 4 of the
IEEE-USA organized to serve IEEE members in the Madison, WI area with
over 600 members.  the 2014 Officers and Board Members are Tom
Kaminski – Chair, Steve Shultheis, Vice Chair, Charles Gervasi –
Treasurer, Brandon Zemlo – Secretary, Timothy Chapman – Webmaster, Tom
Kaminski – ECN Chair, Members at Large: Mitch Bradt, Clark Johnson,
Dennis Bahr, Craig Heilman, Sandy Rotter.

Job Openings

Check out WIEES.com for
electrical engineering jobs in Madison and the surrounding region.
This site is maintained as a service for electrical engineers. Jobs
are displayed starting with the most recent postings first. You can
filter results by location and job type. If you are hiring an
electrical engineer in our area, for full-time or contract work, you
can post the job in the Contact Us
section on the WIEES.com site.  Here is a sampling of the new job
listings:

Contact Us

The IEEE-Madison Section has a number of volunteer positions open if
you are interested in helping out.  Please direct any questions
or comments to Tom Kaminski via email to
tjkaminski-at-ieee.org.