November 2015
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Madison Section Newsletter |
Vol. 18, No. 10 | Serving IEEE Members of South Central Wisconsin |
November 2015 |
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Upcoming Events
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November LMAG Meeting “Software Defined Radio”
- Thursday November 5th, 2015, 11:30
AM - Lecturer: Tom Kaminski
- Location:Madison Central Library,
1st Floor Conference Room (104)
201 W Mifflin St Madison, WI
Madison, WI 53703 - Time: 11:30 AM to 12:55 PM
- Bring your own lunch. Free beverages and cookies
will be available. - Please Register at the IEEE Madison Section
event page -
November EMB018 Meeting “OSTEOPROSIS: The Road To Discovery”
- Wednesday, November 11th, 11:45 AM
- Speaker: Dr. Everett Smith, PhD, Associate Professor Emeritus,
UW-Madison - Details: Lecture and Pizza and
Beverage
- Fee:
Free - Joint
meeting of IEEE-Madison Section and EMB018 Society
- Location:
Tong Auditorium
Engineering Centers
Building
1550 Engineering Drive
Madison, WI 53706 - Please Register at the IEEE-Madison
event page.Talk:
Osteoporosis is a major public health problem in the
elderly, manifested by the presence of low bone mineral density,
lessened skeletal integrity and an increased risk of fractures.
Loss of skeletal integrity is multifactorial. These factors
include human genetics, diet, exercise, bed rest,
weightlessness, cellular sensation of internal and external
environmental forces, disease, and the aging process. The
skeleton has two major functions in the body: it provides
structural support and serves as a mineral reservoir. The
strength of the structural support is dependent on a homeostatic
balance of the systemic and local bone modulators, mechanical
loading and nutrition. Changes in any one of these components,
common in the elderly, can influence the modulation of systemic
and local factors in bone turnover or cause a modulation in the
sensitivity (set point) of bone to mechanical loading. The road
to discovery in our research is to investigate ex vivo bone core
response to induced mechanical loads and known biochemical
modulators of bone turnover. We have developed the Perfusion
Loading System to apply consistent, measurable loads to
trabecular bone cores. The techniques for bone core collection
have been standardized for orientation, size +/- 2um, and for
sterility. The perfusion media flow rate, and flow pattern have
been shown to be adequate to maintain cell viability for at
least 31 days. In studies up to 60 days in length we have
observed active osteoblasts, osteoid, and multiple osteoclasts
in Howships lacunae. In preliminary studies, we have shown
similar bone mineralization patterns in human cores through 35
days and bovine cores at 4 days, and have chosen to use bovine
bone samples because healthy tissue is more readily available.
Further we have seen evidence to suggest that PGE2 levels
transiently increase in response to loading and that the
magnitude of the response increases with days loaded.Bio: Dr. Smith is
an Associate Professor Emeritus at the UW-Madison Department of
Preventative Medicine. He has been a Fellow, American College of
Sports Medicine since 1978, was elected Associate Fellow, American
Academy of Physical Educators in 1986. In 1985, he was given
an award from the Association of American Publishers, Professional
and Scholarly Publishing Division, for the 1985 Best Single Issue,
for Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation as issue editor. He was a
member of the FICSIT trial Monitoring Board from 1991-1993. In
addition, he is or was on the Editorial Board of Topics in
Geriatric Rehabilitation, Calcified Tissue International, and
Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. He has been a
referee for Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise,
Journal of Bone Mineral Research, Bone, Osteoporosis
International, Journal of Applied Physiology, Journal of
Gerontology, Physician and Sports medicine. His activities
include President, National Institute of Biogerontology 1980-2007
and Director Biogerontology Laboratory University of Wisconsin
1975-present. In addition to his extensive research, Dr. Smith is
President/CEO of Regin B&C Bioengineering from 2008-present.
Talk: Software Defined
Radio (SDR) technology replaces the traditional radio hardware
systems with hardware and software that uses Digital Signal
Processing techniques to both transmit and receive radio
signals. In the past, SDR technology was primarily used for
complex military radio and radar systems, but with the advent of
cellular phones and the high-volume RF components used in them, the
technique is now in widespread use. Today, inexpensive ($20) USB
dongles, designed to receive the DVB digital TV video broadcast
signals, incorporate a front end receiver and an In-Phase and
Quadrature Analog to digital converter. When used with a laptop,
DVB-USB dongles utilize SDR to implement a wide range of
products. Tom will discuss some of the theory and will
demonstrate available open-source software that runs on laptops,
phones, and even small-systems like the RaspberryPi allowing you to
experiment with SDR. He will show how you can develop your own
radio receivers using Gnu Radio Companion — a graphical
drag-and-drop front end to SDR systems. Also radio direction finding
work being done with UW students will be presented. Are you using
SDR in your systems today? Bring them for show-and-tell!
Bio: Tom is a retired
instructor of Automation and Robotics at Madison College and is
currently Treasurer of the IEEE Madison Section. He has a BSEE From
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a MSEE from the University of
Michigan, and additional graduate education toward a PhD at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison. Tom is also an Extra Class ham,
WT9E.
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Section News
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Review of September and
October EventsIEEE
Madison Life Member Affinity Group Tours Epic Systems: On
September 26, the Life Members Affinity Group, Madison
Section members and guests toured Epic Systems in Verona,
Wisconsin. Before the tour, everyone socialized in the
reception area of the Andromeda building. Chuck Kime
presented an introduction including facts about Epic, tour
guidelines and particularly interesting features of the
upcoming tour. There were brief comments on the election of
Life Member Affinity Group officers for 2016 (See
“Elections” below for more details). Chuck Cowie led
the one and-a-half tour through the Central Park campus,
consisting of four buildings connected by tunnels and
skyways, and the outdoor Central Park. The tour featured the
themes of each of the buildings and the park including
architecture, art and unusual fun features, such as a slide
and swings, supporting the themes. The tour route was
planned to include views to the outside of much of the rest
of the Epic Campus including a two megawatt solar PV array
and construction of two additional new themed campuses plus
a large new cafeteria.
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Photo: LMAG Epic Tour group
gathering in the Andromeda SunroomOctober ECN Meeting: Patrick
Steinnon of Stiennon & Stiennon presented a wealth of material
about intellectual property and patent issues from the perspective
of both a patent attorney and an engineer with patents. He also
touched on the rising incidence of patent trolls or “non-practicing
entities”. Is WARF a patent Troll? Not in most people’s
interpretation. He also included a large number of on-line
references for us to use. You can access those Patent Links online HERE.October Section Meeting: The
Challenges and Opportunities Using UAS Imagery: Paul
Braun’s talk to our section on Oct 15 focused on practical aspects
of geospatial mapping using unmanned aerial systems (UASs). Image
resolution from UAS photography is much better than satellite image
resolution. Recording images from a camera mounted on a UAS is
not trivial because the wind changes the orientation of the UAS.
Image processing software cannot compensate for the camera changing
orientation with the wind. High-end UASs have gimbals to keep
the camera pointed straight down. A UAS can be fitted with a laser
imaging device that produces a “point cloud” of locations. It
sends short duration laser pulses and works out the distances by the
time of the returns. If the width of the beam is larger than the
object it hits, there can be several returns at different
times. The resolution is in the tenth of a foot range. The
composite picture below shows the difference in resolution that a
UAV can produce compared to a UAV at low altitude and shows the
“point cloud” 3D model with overlaid color that can be produced with
UAVs. Typical flights are ten minutes long, limited by battery
capacity. 2GB of data per minute is typically saved. The
desire for longer flight times may drive battery development. One of
our members asked if this technology will make airplane-based
photography obsolete. Braun says it may one day in the future
but no time soon.Braun showed us a photograph of a partially collapsed bridge. A UAS
was able to fly right beside the failure point and photograph it at
close range, something that would be impossible or very risky
without a UAS. For one application they modify a camera to display
near IR. The images can be used for agriculture / vegetation
analysis. Subtle changes in the type or health of crops appear
clearly in the near-IR image. Having this information allows
for more surgical use of pesticides and fertilizer. Clients usually
request high-resolution imaging and later select lower resolution to
save money. One client specifically asked for lower resolution
because they didn’t time to review all the images and didn’t want
someone to discover after a failure that there were high resolution
images that showed the problem if only someone had reviewed
them. As this technology becomes more common, not having
access to high-resolution images will no longer be an excuse for
missing safety hazards.At the end of the talk Braun showed us pictures of a non-profit
organization called Taking Autism to the Sky ( TATTS
). It does projects with autistic children, in which they build and
use UAS. Often people on the autism spectrum enjoy the
detail-oriented technical work of working with UASs. The detached
perspective of seeing the world in a virtual reality headset from
the point of view of a camera on a drone can be helpful for them.
Children who are overwhelmed by contact with people can enjoy the
detached perspective of operating a drone.-
Upcoming Meetings
Madison Section Meeting: We
are planning to have Greg Taylor, a local musician who composes
music with electronics instruments talk about the current trends
in electronic music. We are also looking into a meeting on
Professional Ethics that would also be suitable for P.E.
certification requirements for the State of Wisconsin.December ECN Meeting: No
plans yet — do you have any ideas? Contact Tom Kaminski
(tjkaminsk (at) ieee.org). -
IEEE Madison Elections
LMAG:
Selection of 2016 officers for the IEEE Madison Life Member
Affinity Group will occur at the November 5, 2015 meeting.
Current candidates are Chuck Cowie for Chair and Chuck Kime for
Vice-Chair. Additional positions to be filled include Secretary
(primarily handling meeting minutes), Treasurer (primarily
handling expenditures) and Meeting Planner (assisting in
generating ideas and planning for presentations and events).
Interested candidates for any position should contact Chuck
Kime, Chair at 274-1402 or crkime@charter.net or Chuck
Cowie, Vice Chair at (608) 412-4412 or cjc1ecom@gmail.com by
November 3, 2015.Madison Section Officer
Nominations: You will be receiving an e-mail ballot in
November or December for Section Officer Elections. If you are
interested in running for office, please let Steve Shultheis
know (email: ss (at) ieee.org).
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Volunteers Needed
Micro Volunteers: Do you
have some time to spare to help IEEE-Madison Section?
Perhaps you have a meeting topic that you would like to see us
host and could find a speaker. Maybe you have time to call
a few members who might have forgotten to renew their
membership.Antenna Modeler: Do you
have experience with designing and modeling antennas? The
UW-Madison IEEE Student Branch project team would love to have you
help them model the RDF antennas they have built.Please consider sending some time helping with the Section
activities. Let me know (tjkaminski (at) ieee.org).
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Regular Meetings
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Section Meetings
The third Thursday of January through May, and September through
December is reserved for a meeting to provide recent research,
developments, trends and/or innovations in one of our membership’s
technical areas. -
IEEE-MSN-ECN Networking Meetings
- Purpose: Presentations, Discussions, networking
- Date: First Thursday of even-numbered months
- Time: 11:45 AM to 1:00 PM
- Location: Sector67, 2100 Winnebago Street (East Side of
Madison) - Parking: Park in lot or on Winnebago Street.
- Process: Members are encouraged to make introductions,
describe endeavors, and make request for: contacts in target
companies, needs, resources. - Contact: For assistance, call Tim Chapman 2 0 6 – 2 5 7 0
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Membership Upgrades
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About IEEE
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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 2015 Officers and Board Members are Charles
Gervasi – Chair, Steve Schultheis, Vice Chair, Tom Kaminski –
Treasurer, Matthew Bartlett – Secretary, Timothy Chapman – Webmaster,
Tom Kaminski – ECN Chair, Dennis Bahr – Engineering in Medicine and
Biology Chapter Chair, Ann E. Thompson – Educational Activities Chair,
Scott Olsen – Industrial Outreach Chair, Members at Large: Mitch
Bradt, Clark Johnson, 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: - Senior Application and Configuration Engineer, Watertown
- Software Engineer, Madison Area
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Sponsored Content
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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 (Newsletter Editor) via email to
tjkaminski(at)ieee.org.
Those interested in upgrading their IEEE membership level should send
their resumes or other information showing five years of significant
performance in an IEEE-designated field to Charles J Gervasi via email
at cj(at)cgervasi.com. Madison Section Board will attempt to find Senior
IEEE members knowledgeable in the applicant’s area of practice who may
be able to provide references. You are invited to attend the informal
networking portion of the monthly Section meetings (starting at 11:30am)
to meet the Section Board members and discuss intentions.

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