T TOOK THE BETTER PART of twoand a half years and tens of thou-sands of dollars, but there I was on 5 January 2006 sitting in the spanking-new computer center in the electricaland electronics engineering depart-

ment at the University of Ibadan in Nige-ria. I was there with the encouragement ofmy boss, IEEE Spectrum Editor Susan Has-sler, to celebrate what the IEEE NigeriaSection and the university had accom-plished. The project was backed by dona-tions I had helped them solicit from theIEEE, the IEEE Foundation, and theHewlett-Packard Foundation.

I was alternately banging out e-mail andusing a friend’s cellphone to call the IEEE

office in Piscataway, N.J. The computercenter’s manager was on another cell, talk-ing with a server technician in Vancouver,B.C., Canada. The clock was ticking. IEEEPast President W. Cleon Anderson, alongwith a host of students, faculty, universityadministrators, and Nigerian press, weredue to visit the 60-seat IEEE/HP Telecenterfor the official ribbon-cutting ceremony inless than 24 hours. And the IEEE Xploredigital library, the centerpiece of the IEEE’sdonation to the telecenter, had to be acces-sible from all 60 computer terminals inthe building.

The satellite Internet connection hadjust been switched on, and I took fulladvantage, sending a message to IEEE’s

Publishing Technology Department, list-ing all the IP addresses that IEEE servershad to recognize to give the telecenter’scomputers access to the 1.2 million doc-uments in IEEE Xplore.

And then it hit me: this unique facilitywas finally online. Although there are afew computer labs scattered amongAfrican universities, the one at the Uni-versity of Ibadan is special in two ways.First, it supports 60 users at any giventime, thanks to 15 Hewlett-Packard 4-4-1workstations, computers that have hadtheir processors and hard drives parti-tioned four ways to feed four differentmonitors and keyboards. The IEEE/HPTelecenter is the first

http ://www. ieee.org/the inst i tute March 2006 VOL. 30, N0. 1

MEMBER ROCKETS INTO SPACE p. 12

I

The

IEEE Web SiteWorks Smarter,Looks SharperBY WILLIE D. JONES

THE IEEE’S WEB SITE not onlyhas a new look, unveiled in mid-January, but it is also better organ-ized and easier to navigate. The

remake, which took more than a year,began when the IEEE conducted its first-ever study to find out just how easy—ordifficult—it was to use the site. The resultswere not encouraging.

A group of IEEE members and pro-spective members was each asked to findspecific content—such as a particular con-ference or technical paper—from the Webaddress http://www.ieee.org. They werethen asked to grade the experience; thegrades were so poor that in June the IEEEBoard of Directors elevated the project torevamp the Web site from the need-to-dolist to the must-do-immediately list.

“The Web site was overdue for more thanjust a cosmetic update,” says Senior MemberMarc Apter, who, as Vice President, IEEERegional Activities at the time, was one ofthe volunteer leaders who pushed for the overhaul and is a [Continued on page 8]

[Continued on page 7]

NETWORKING NIGERIA IEEE Helps Engineering Students GetWorld-Class Internet Facility

Some of the people behind the Webupdate. From left: Sally Waselik, DavidGreen, Joanne Vara, and Marc Apter.

BY HARRY GOLDSTEIN

Standing at the entrance to theIEEE/HP Telecenter atits dedication inJanuary are, from left,IEEE Past President W.Cleon Anderson, IEEENigeria Section chairTunde Salihu,University of Ibadanengineering chair OlaFakolujo, IEEESpectrum Senior EditorHarry Goldstein,University of IbadanVice Chancellor O.A.Bamiro, former sectionchair Isaac Adekayne,HP representativeStanley Muoneke, andformer Ibadan studentbranch chair DeboOnifade.

3p.coverfeatures.lo 2/7/06 2:15 PM Page 1

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THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 3

1 Networking NigeriaBY HARRY GOLDSTEINA partnership between the IEEE and the Hewlett-PackardFoundation has funded a world-class computer center forengineering students [shown above with IEEE SpectrumSenior Editor Harry Goldstein, center] at the University ofIbadan in Nigeria.

1 IEEE Web Site WorksSmarter, Looks SharperBY WILLIE D. JONESMore than a year in the making, the revamped site makesall things easier for members, volunteers, and visitors.

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

6 Enabling Members To Compete GloballyBY MICHAEL R. LIGHTNERThe IEEE helps technical professionals move ahead in a glob-ally competitive environment through conferences, continuingeducation programs, and opportunities to volunteer.

Art & photo credits: Page 1: Space Adventures (top); Olu Kaycee Amanba (center); E.J. Carr (bottom); Page 3: Olu Kaycee Amanba; Page 4: Georgia Instituteof Technology (left); courtesy of Lewis M. Terman; courtesy of John R. Vig; Page 6: E.J. Carr; Page 7: Harry Goldstein; Page 9: E.J. Carr; Page 10: RyanMcVay/Getty Images; Page 12: Space Adventures; Page 13: Stanford News Service Archives (left); Jose Mercado/Stanford News Service (right); Page 14: MatthiasTunger/Getty Images; Page 15: John Webber; Page 16: Artiga Photo/Masterfile; Page 18: John Ueland; Page 19: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images (top); CliffAnger (bottom).

NEWS 4 Candidates Named

For 2007 President-Elect

IEEE Explores Opening An Office in China

Microelectronics Pioneer Awarded IEEE Medal of Honor

New Award Recognizes Ethical Practices

DEPARTMENTS5 LETTERS

5 MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS

11 FELLOWS

12 MEMBER PROFILE

14 EDUCATION

16 PRODUCTS & SERVICES

17 DEADLINES AND REMINDERS

18 BEST PRACTICES

19 MEMBER RECOGNITION

19 IN MEMORIAM

1

THE INSTITUTE (ISSN 1050-1797) is published quarterly by The Institute of

Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., 3 Park Ave., 17th Floor, New York, N.Y.

10016-5997; tel. +1 212 419 7900. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and at

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THE INSTITUTEONLINEhttp://www.ieee.org/theinstitute

Look for these articles on 7 March

ELECTION A new way to get to know the candidates

for 2007 President-Elect.

NEWS The IEEE Foundation launches a program

to promote technical literacy.

FEATURED CONFERENCE Learn about the latest

in eco-friendly electronic design, manufacturing, and research

at the IEEE International Symposium on Electronics and the

Environment to be held 8–11 May in San Francisco.

CONTENTS10 Most-Cited JournalHits Hot AreasOf Pattern AnalysisBY TRUDY E. BELLTransactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligenceproves to be a popular publication.

13 Biography of LegendaryStanford Professor WinsIEEE-USA AwardBY EVAN KOBLENTZA Stanford engineering school graduate got hooked onFrederick Terman and wrote the story of Terman’s life.

15 New ForensicsPublication PursuesInformation SecurityBY IVAN BERGERQuarterly journal is one-stop source for information-processing, biometrics, and communications security.

3p.toc.page03 2/7/06 2:08 PM Page 3

AT LEAST TWO CANDIDATES willbe on the 2006 ballot for President-Elect.The two were recommended by the IEEENominations and Appointments Committeeand selected by theBoard of Directorsat its November2005 meeting. Thewinner of the elec-tion will succeedLeah Jamieson,whose term as IEEEPresident expiresat the end of 2007.

LEWIS M. TERMAN, an IEEE Life Fel-low, is the associate director of the SystemsDepartment of the IBM Research Division,in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. He was directorof IEEE Division I and a member of theIEEE Board of Directors in 2004 and 2005.He also served as vice president of IEEETechnical Activities in 2001.

Terman joined IBM in 1961, andsince 1981, he has directed groupsdoing research on circuits, devices,and technology for advanced MOSmemory and logic.

Terman received a bachelor’s degreein physics and master’s and doctoraldegrees in electrical engineering fromStanford University, in California, in 1956,1958, and 1961, respectively.

JOHN R. VIG has been a researcherand program manager since 1969 at theU.S. Army Communications–Electron-ics Research, Development & Engineer-ing Center, in Fort Monmouth, N.J. AnIEEE Fellow, he works on the experi-

mental aspects of frequency-control andsensor devices.

Vig was 2005 vice president of IEEETechnical Activities and the 1998 and 1999

president of theIEEE Ultrasonics,Ferroelectrics, andFrequency Con-trol Society. Born in Budapest, Hun-gary, Vig im-migrated in 1957to the UnitedStates. He received

his bachelor’s degree in physics from theCity College of New York in 1964 and hismaster’s and doctoral degrees in physicsfrom Rutgers University, in NewBrunswick, N.J., in 1966 and 1969, respectively.

Ballots are scheduled to be mailed tovoting members by 1 September. Thefinal version of the 2006 election ballotmay also have the names of memberswho have successfully petitioned theIEEE membership to become candi-dates for 2007 President-Elect. Startingwith the 2006 annual election, the peti-tion signature requirement haschanged. For an explanation of thechange, or for instructions on how topetition for an office, contact Carrie Loh,IEEE Corporate Activities, at +1 732 5623934, e-mail: c.loh@ieee.org.

Qualifications for petition candidatesare specified in the IEEE Policies. Thecompleted petition must be received at theIEEE Operations Center by 9 June 2006. •

NEWSFROM AROUND THE IEEE & THE WORLD

4 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

Candidates NamedFor 2007 President-Elect

DO YOU KNOW of an IEEE member or an organization employing IEEE membersthat has shown exemplary ethical behavior or practices, or successfully advocated them?Then consider nominating that person or company for the newly established IEEEAward for Distinguished Ethical Practices.

The first award will be presented in 2007. The deadline for nominations is 1 July 2006.Nominations must come from the general membership of the IEEE. Members of the

IEEE Board of Directors, the Awards Board, the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee(EMCC), and IEEE staff may not submit nominations. Self-nominations are not permitted.

A nominating form is available on the EMCC Web site at http://www.ieee.org/ethics andthrough the Other Awards Programs link on the IEEE Awards Web site at http://www.ieee.org/awards. •

Microelectronics PioneerAwarded IEEE Medal of HonorIEEE LIFE FELLOW James D. Meindlis the recipient of the 2006 IEEE Medal ofHonor for his contributions to micro-electronics, including his research into solving the key problems of the physicallimits of gigascale silicon technology inte-gration and on-chip interconnections.The award also recognizes his work withthe novel low-power integrated circuitsand sensors that he developedfor a portable electronic read-ing aid for the blind.

Meindl has been involvedwith solid-state electronics fornearly his entire career, mostrecently as the director of theJoseph M. Pettit Microelec-tronics Research Center at theGeorgia Institute of Technol-ogy, in Atlanta. He has been the Joseph M.Pettit Chair Professor of Microsystemssince joining the university in 1993.

At Georgia Tech, Meindl developed amethod to predict the future of microelec-tronics more accurately. He calls it a “hier-archy of theoretical and practical limits.”The hierarchy starts with very fundamen-tal laws of physics and moves up the scaleto very complex systems. His system usesfive distinct levels: fundamental, material,device, circuit, and system. By applying hishierarchy of limits, he believes he can bet-ter understand the physical laws that gov-ern what can be done on a microchip.

Meindl began his work with ICs in1965 as the founding director of the Inte-

grated Electronics Division of the U.S.Army Electronics Laboratories, in FortMonmouth, N.J. He researched micro-power ICs for portable military equip-ment used by foot soldiers.

He left there in 1967 to join StanfordUniversity, in California, as the John M.Fluke Professor of Electrical Engineer-ing and associate dean for research of

the School of Engineering.He was the founding directorof both the school’s Center forIntegrated Systems as well asits Integrated Circuits Labo-ratory. These facilities servedas university–industry coop-erative research centers inmicroelectronics.

It was at Stanford that heand a team of other engineers helpeddevelop the electronic print-readingdevice for the visually impaired daughterof one of his colleagues.

In 1986 Meindl became the senior vicepresident for academic affairs and provostof Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, inTroy, N.Y. He was responsible for intro-ducing a computer calculus curriculumfor all first- and second-year students. Hereturned to research in 1993, when hejoined Georgia Tech.

The Medal of Honor, sponsored by theIEEE Foundation, is the IEEE’s highestaward. It will be presented to Meindl inJune at the annual IEEE Honors Ceremonyin Minneapolis. •

IEEE Explores Office in ChinaTHE IEEE BOARD OF DIRECTORSapproved US $70 000 in November to studythe feasibility of opening an office in China,which would provide the IEEE with a “legaland physical presence” in the country. Rec-ommendations were to have been deliv-ered to the board at its 19 February meet-ing, which had not been held at press time.

Although IEEE societies have heldmany international events in the country,a China office would perform functionssuch as assisting members in China withmembership issues, helping to organizeconferences, and supporting activities ofIEEE societies in China and the Far East.

With projections indicating a contin-ued rapid rise in the number of engineer-

ing graduates in China, paired with theastonishing growth of engineering activi-ties in the region, it’s common sense thatthe IEEE should explore ways to improveits services for members and other engi-neers in the country, according to IEEEPresident Michael Lightner.

“Although we partner with key Chinesetechnical and scientific organizations, it’sgetting increasingly complex to workeffectively in China without having a legalpresence in the country,” Lightner says.

“The IEEE is here to serve members andother technical professionals,” Lightner con-tinues. “If there’s an area where that is hardto do because of an organizational issue, thenwe should work to try to solve that issue.” •

John R. Vig

—Compiled by Kathy Kowalenko & Shazia Memon

Lewis M. Terman

James D. Meindl

New Award Recognizes Ethical Practices

3p.news.page04 2/6/06 5:42 PM Page 4

THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 5

MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS

Prisoners on EarthThe shuttle and the ISS were expensive andnecessary lessons, not mistakes. The shut-tle promised cheap, routine access to spacevia reusable systems instead of wasteful,throwaway vehicles.

I want my children to have the oppor-tunity to go to Mars and the outer planets,rather than being prisoners of this planet.Unquestionably NASA has made manyserious errors in the shuttle’s design. Ithas chosen complex, expensive, highlyspecialized, customized, and difficult-to-maintain high-tech solutions that makeminimal contributions to the goal of hav-ing a cheap, routine, and reusable vehicle.

Griffin needs to understand the dualnature of NASA’s space mission. It is notonly to place scientific instruments at dis-tant locations in our solar system but toget human explorers there as well. If hecan conceive of a better, faster, and

cheaper way to acquire the knowledgeneeded to get people to those locations,we’ll all support it.

GEORGE MCKEE

Centerport, N.Y.

Dubious EconomicsSpace is important to the future of scien-tific exploration. We are not satisfied withunderstanding only our planet. As a step-ping stone to reach Mars and beyond, thespace shuttle and the ISS are necessary.Both help us move toward our goals.However, it is questionable whether theymake economic sense. NASA claimedthat the shuttle would be 15 timescheaper to fly than the Saturn vehicles,but it turned out to be three times moreexpensive.

Originally, NASA expected to reuse theshuttle within weeks of a flight and at a rea-sonable cost. However, it takes months to

refurbish the shuttle for another flight thatcosts an average of US $760 million. As aresult, the most enthusiastic researchersbecame doubtful. Shouldn’t we be moresensible about exploratory projects?

HONG-LOK LI

Vancouver, B.C., Canada

Destined for SpaceThe space shuttle and the ISS are onlyone part of the space exploration plan.How do we expect to get rewards when weare only partly into the plan? We need toremain committed. Engineering is aboutlearning lessons, making appropriateadjustments, and moving on. Like dis-covering America, discovering space isour destiny and our future.

Let’s get going. Mr. Griffin, we arewhere we are. As a U.S. taxpayer, I am notpaying you to tell me why, in your opinion,the previous programs are mistakes. I ampaying you to move us to our destiny inspace. Lead or get out of the way.

JIM LEWIS

Tigard, Ore.

On to Mars!The United States has wasted 30 yearsand astronauts’ lives on hollow symbol-ism. Those were the years when most ofus had expected to see humans buildingin space, not pointlessly going around in

circles. We should return to the moon andgo on to Mars to explore and establishfootholds for human colonization andexploitation of space’s vast resources.

TOM CRAVER

Chandler, Ariz.

LETTERS

More Women Are Not the Issue First I should declare myself guilty ofbeing an old-fashioned male chauvinist.But I encouraged all of my children to gointo scientific and technology careers,including a daughter who became one ofthe first female airline captains in theUnited States. My answer to Moshe Kam’squestion in “Why Won’t Jane Go to Engi-neering School?” [December, p. 16] is thatJane simply doesn’t want to. Despite thetrend toward equality between men andwomen, the fact remains that women andmen are different.

Of course Jane isn’t dumb; she justdoesn’t care for science or engineering.As long as we have enough engineers todo the job, why should we care about thepercentage of female engineers?

We shouldn’t attempt to sell a career inengineering to anyone. Men or womeninterested in the field will go into it as longas we don’t put any gender-based barriers inthe way. If someone has to have a career inengineering sold to him or her, then thatperson should look for another job.

DEAN S. EDMONDS JR. Naples, Fla.

Kam’s article starts out saying thatdespite years of promotions, funding, andresearch studies, few women earn engi-neering degrees. Kam then jumps tosome pretty fanciful conclusions. Forexample, he says law and medicine, whichhave much higher percentages of women,offer a “friendly and inviting atmosphere,”whereas engineering consists of “longhours, high stress, and competitiveness.”

My friends in medicine spent years inschool and residency where mistakes canresult in death. I work with lawyers who,after law school’s grueling training, putin 80- to 100-hour weeks for eight years ata modest salary in the hopes that theymake partner at their law firm. If theydon’t they start all over at another firm.

Most disturbing is Kam’s suggestionthat universities change engineering cur-ricula in order to attract more women.More important than focusing on the gen-der of future graduates is the task ofimproving engineering education andencouraging all students to enter our excit-ing, challenging, and lucrative profession.

BOB ZEIDMAN Cupertino, Calif.

Too InclusiveIn reference to the proposed change in theIEEE Code of Ethics mentioned in “Mem-bers Weigh In on IEEE Code of EthicsRevision” [December, p. 5], the term “tech-nological” encompasses a broader spec-trum of disciplines than just electrical andelectronic engineering. It also includes,among others, chemical and civil engi-neering, which have their own organiza-tions. Unless we expect to incorporate allthe engineering disciplines into one bigtechnical society, it is presumptuous tobroaden the scope of the IEEE Code ofEthics by using the term “technological.”

GEORGE R. TRIMBLE JR. Princeton, N.J.

Bureaucracy at Its Worst“Medical Records: From Clipboard toPoint-and-Click” [December, p. 1] spokeof the U.S. government’s interest in thewhole scheme of making “patient med-ical records available 24/7 anywhere, any-time, anyplace in the world.” I feel thatonce the technology is in place, citizens—doctors and patients alike—will be forcedto participate. This information will be

linked through Social Security numbers todozens of other databases—public andotherwise—that can be queried by anynumber of government agencies. The offi-cial concerns over privacy are eyewash.Look at any privacy statement handed outby the government and even private insti-tutions. It’s just a rationalization for invad-ing privacy and is not worth the paper it isprinted on.

If a private citizen wants to put his orher own medical records on a CD-ROM ormemory stick, fine. In the case of electronicmedical records, however, we find an exam-ple of a profession selling out to earn pro-fessional kudos and make a few bucks.

GARY DAMERON Colorado Springs, Colo.

Man in SpaceRESPONSES TO DECEMBER’S QUESTION

The need to generate electricpower without producing green-house gases has prompted government officials and evensome environmentalists toreconsider nuclear power. Howwould you feel about a newnuclear power plant in the areawhere you live?

RESPOND TO THIS QUESTION by e-mail or regular mail. Space may not permit publication of all responses, but we’ll try todraw a representative sample. Suggestions for questions are welcome. Responses willappear in the June issue of The Instituteand are subject to editing for brevity.

MAIL: The Institute, IEEE Operations Center445 Hoes Lane Piscataway, NJ 08855-1331 USAFAX: +1 732 235 1626 E-MAIL: institute@ieee.org

Power for the People

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin is quoted as saying that the spaceshuttle and the International Space Station (ISS) were mistakes. Thetwo projects, he said, are too expensive in terms of astronauts’ livesand dollars and haven’t produced enough scientific knowledge. Whatdo you think?

CorrectionIn “Herz Award to Honor OutstandingIEEE Employee” [December, p. 4], theeligibility requirement for receivingthe award was incorrect. Full-time pastor present staff members of the IEEEwith at least 10 years of service are eli-gible for the award.

3p.marketplace/letters.p05 2/6/06 4:17 PM Page 5

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Quick Guide

PRESIDENT’S COLUMN BY MICHAEL R. LIGHTNER

FRIEDMAN USES “flat” as a synonymfor “connected,” and he writes about howsweeping technical advances—especiallyin telecommunications—combined withthe lowering of trade and political barriers,have eliminated all obstacles to interna-tional competition.

“Globalization 3.0,” as he calls it, isbeing driven by enterprising, innovativeorganizations and individuals around theworld. Friedman repeatedly emphasizeshow they are using technology to win—not just the low-wage manufacturing andinformation jobs but, increasingly, themost prized research and design work aswell. Friedman advises, “If you want togrow and flourish in a flat world, you bet-ter learn how to change and align yourselfwith it.”

Is this scary stuff? To the ill-preparedprofessional, perhaps it is. But IEEEmembers already have many of the nec-essary tools to help them distinguishthemselves in this globally competitiveenvironment. Historically, the IEEE hasembraced transnationalism, that is,working with a global focus whilerespecting local and national concerns,

and it has demonstrated the globalnature of technology through our pro-grams and activities. Indeed, since theIEEE’s founding, we have worked to pro-vide access to our programs and activitiesto engineers and other technical profes-sionals around the world.

For example, the more than 325 IEEEconferences held internationally eachyear provide an outstanding opportunityto learn cutting-edge information inyour field of interest and to meet otherprofessionals with interests similar toyours. At least a few of these confer-ences are probably near where you live.Also, there are section and chaptermeetings—ideal situations in which todistinguish yourself. At the simplest,you can join informal discussions aboutsomething new and exciting. You canoffer to present a paper on your ownwork or volunteer to help organize atutorial or workshop. Leadership oppor-tunities abound in every society, section,and chapter. Volunteering and gettinginvolved are some of the best ways toget noticed and stand out as an effec-tive professional. Another way to make

a mark is by participating in anIEEE Standards working group.

Maintaining technical currencyis critical for success as a technicalprofessional. This can be donethrough reading the literature,attending conferences, or takingcontinuing education courses, in-cluding the myriad programs of var-ious IEEE societies, such as the IEEEComputer Society’s Distance Learn-ing Campus. In 2006, EducationalActivities’ Expert Now IEEE, currentlyavailable through several institutions, isexpected to be introduced to members. Itis a set of hour-long, online learningmodules with both the latest informa-tion on emerging technologies and sem-inal works presented at IEEE tutorialsand workshops.

Looking ahead, the IEEE is explor-ing new areas where we can furtherassist technical professionals to distin-guish themselves in the globally com-petitive environment. One possibility isto develop technical currency programsthat, upon successful completion, willcertify that individuals are up to date in

a given area. This currency certificationwould be valid for a specific time period.

This is just one example of what theIEEE is pursuing for technical professionals.We are considering other ideas, but lack ofspace prevents discussing them here. IEEEmembers will continue to enjoy preferentialpricing and registration at conferences andfor products and services.

We need your input—whether sugges-tions or concerns. During 2006, I hope thisPresident’s Column will provide two-waycommunications between you and me.Please send your ideas and concerns to meat lightner.column@ieee.org. •

In his best-selling book, The World Is Flat, Thomas L. Friedmanadds new urgency to what technology professionals already know.

Enabling Members To Compete Globally

6 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

Editor: Kathy Kowalenko

Assistant Editor: Erica Vonderheid

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The

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in sub-Saharan Africa to use these low-cost but robustmachines. Second, thanks to a US $14 000 donation fromthe IEEE Foundation to fund Internet access for two yearsand a matching donation from the IEEE, students and fac-ulty have free access to the IEEE digital library for at leastthree years, giving aspiring engineers and their instructorsa valuable resource found nowhere else in Africa.

COMPUTER-POOR After I visited Nigeria for the first time,in June 2003, to report on the impact of the $640 millionSAT-3 fiber-optic cable for IEEE Spectrum, I didn’t imaginethat I would return any time soon. True, I’d madefriends among the engineers, students, professors,and many IEEE members I’d met. Although allendured the typical privations one expects in a devel-oping country—bad roads, rolling blackouts, andendemic malaria—the students seemed at a specialdisadvantage compared with peers in other coun-tries. They had no access to peer-reviewed journals,up-to-date textbooks or computers, or the Internet.

At the Federal University of Technology, Owerri,Nigeria, 800 students shared time on the dean’sancient Intel 486 computer to write their papers. Toe-mail someone, they had to write out the mes-sage and then take it to a local cybercafé where itwas typed and sent. So my new friends didn’t haveto say much to persuade me to help them findgrants for computers and a satellite Internet con-nection for the University of Ibadan’s EE students.

But the project had dragged on, and I feared studentswould never be able to walk in and do research using theInternet and IEEE Xplore. That’s because, first, the uni-versity had to decide which of its buildings to donate forthe facility and to commit to wiring a 60-seat computercenter. Then HP learned that power was so unreliable atthe school that the HP foundation would also have tofund the purchase of a diesel generator. Next, a still-maturing African supply chain delayed the deploymentof HP’s new 4-4-1 computers for several months.

HP made its donations, which total about $125 000,on the condition that the center’s server and local areanetwork would be remotely administered, monitored,and maintained by Advanced Interactive, in Vancouver.That meant HP also had to pay for a satellite dish and thefirst year’s worth of service, while my Nigerian colleaguesand I had to shop around for the best deal to fit the lim-ited budget.

Unfortunately, the first Internet service provider wecontracted with didn’t deliver the promised level of serv-ice and shut off the connection just weeks after the com-puters had been delivered. Then there were personnelchanges in the university’s electrical engineering depart-ment and at the telecenter itself, along with the difficul-ties of communicating about the project across nine timezones in four countries—Canada, the United States,Nigeria, and Switzerland, where some of our HP col-leagues are based.

DOUBTS APLENTY So it was with a sense of the miraculousthat I hadn’t experienced since I posted my first messageon an Internet bulletin board in 1991 that I answered e-mail and downloaded papers from IEEE Xplore inIbadan. It was a day I thought might never come.

I was not alone. As I was composing another mes-

sage, the university’s vice chancellor, O.A. Bamiro, andhis entourage walked into the facility for the first time.At the ribbon-cutting ceremony the next day, Bamiroexplained to the crowd that he hadn’t visited the centeruntil the night before because he had been a doubtingThomas. But now that the center had opened, he and theuniversity pledged to find a bigger building to house itand to play an active role in seeing to its sustainabilityand success.

Bamiro related the biblical story of Saint Thomas to acrowd of more than 200, who were fanning themselves

beneath awnings erected to shield them from the scorchingtropical sun. And though the center’s ribbon cutting had pro-vided the occasion for them to gather, they had really cometo see Past President Anderson, who was greeted with all thepomp and pageantry accorded a visiting head of state.

Anderson started his speech by thanking more thana dozen people who had contributed to the success of theproject. The first IEEE President to visit Nigeria, hequoted Demosthenes, the ancient Greek orator: “Smallopportunities are often the beginning of great enter-prises.” With a crew from Nigerian National Televisionrecording the proceedings, Anderson went on to say,

“This center has the potential to become a model forsimilar projects in other Nigerian locations and through-out sub-Saharan Africa.” Moments later, Anderson andStanley Mouneke, HP’s representative in West Africa,together clasped a pair of scissors and, with onlookerscraning their necks for a glimpse, cut the yellow ribbonto officially open the IEEE/HP Telecenter.

The next day Anderson attended the annual IEEE Nige-ria Section meeting, which was scheduled to coincide withthe commissioning. Inside the meeting hall, where a fewfeeble fans barely stirred the warm, sticky air, new officers

were installed, most notably Tunde Salihu as pres-ident. As the section’s treasurer and the IEEE’sproject manager on the Ibadan project, Salihu hadworked tirelessly for two years to get the center upand running. He had taken over from IsaacAdekanye, founder of the section, which has grownunder his guidance from a handful of members in2000 to more than 1600 today.

Nigeria is a deeply religious country, andwhether one attends church or mosque, referencesto divine forces are appreciated, even expected. Allformal meetings—and even some car trips—beginwith a prayer. So when Anderson delivered akeynote speech sprinkled with religious references,section members—Christian and Muslim alike—nodded their heads reverently, applauded, and evenspoke along with Anderson’s slides, as if respond-ing to a sermon.

“I believe in the nobleness of engineers: they are noblemen and noble women because of their creative natureand because of their ability to leave a better community, abetter nation, and a better world with their Master’s touch,”Anderson declared. Then, quoting from the revelation toJoseph Smith, he said, “I believe ‘the earth is full, there isenough and to spare; and … given unto the children of mento be agents unto themselves.’”

“Truly, engineers are not only innovators but creatorstoo,” he continued. “Indeed, I believe that there are ele-ments of the divine in the profession of engineering. I thinkthat it is within the calling of the engineer, and the engi-

THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 7THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 7

NETWORKING NIGERIA Continued from page 1

The IEEE/HPTelecenter connectsto the Internet via a well-protectedsatellite dish.

From left: Adekayne, Bamiro, Anderson,and Fakolujo test-drive IEEE Xplore duringthe telecenter’s opening day while acameraman from Nigerian NationalTelevision records the event.

3p.coverfeatures.lo 2/7/06 2:18 PM Page 7

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member of the volunteer group that super-vises the project, the IEEE Information Tech-nology Strategy Committee (ITSC). “The oldsite was trying to be a member site, a site forour volunteers, and also a corporate site tothe outside world. None of these con-stituencies was well served.”

Similar concerns were held by anothermember of the committee, Life FellowWillis K. King. “Before this update, you hadto know exactly where things were on thesite to find them, and every section had a dif-ferent look,” he says. “Now the site is farmore uniform, with the areas for navigatingthe site appearing the same way and in thesame place on whatever page you’re on.”

USER FOCUS “The greatest challenge for thisWeb project was to move away from organi-zationally focused content to somethingmore user-friendly,” says Senior MemberDavid Green, also an ITSC member. Henotes that the IEEE has so many productsand services, and such a diverse constituency,that it is difficult to present content in a com-prehensive way and not overwhelm users.

“We tended to present the information

the easiest way we knew how—the way theIEEE was organized,” he says. However, thatproved far from adequate and it was agreed,partly as a result of the study, that the Website should focus on the user.

The main navigation bar now foundacross the top of most pages is the key to thenew focus, says IEEE chief information offi-cer Sally Waselik, who led the Web siterevamp. The categories on the bar are whatmembers look for most often on the site.The menu tabs include Membership, Pub-lications, Conferences, Standards, and Edu-cation. Each broad category links to a pagewith links to more specific information.Such linked pages are known as informa-tion portals.

“Each information portal is accessiblefrom the navigation menu at the top of anypage,” says Waselik, “making previouslyhard-to-find content areas like publicationsor education almost always just a click away.”

The navigation structure is applied tomost pages and provides access to contentareas much faster than before.

In addition to that navigation bar, userswill see a box on every page that asks sim-

neering profession, to find the ways to lead the world out of the miseries of povertyand help fulfill everyone’s dream of living in a developed country of one’s birth.”

HOMEGROWN EXPANSION The last statement underscored why we were in Nigeriain the first place. To stem the brain drain that steals the best minds from devel-oping countries, you first have to provide students with educational tools andopportunities that let them study at local institutions. And then slowly, over thecourse of years, technology sectors will start up, expand, and begin to employhomegrown engineers. Nigeria has seen this starting to happen in the telecom-munications sector, where the country has gone from no cellphones in 2000 to anestimated 10 million in 2006. As more base stations sprout up and fiber-optic cableis finally laid across the country to connect long-haul international calls to the SAT-3 cable I reported on in 2003, there is hope that today’s Nigerian engineer-ing students will be able to find a good job in the country of their birth.

But as Anderson said, the Ibadan project is just the start. More companies needto donate new computers to developing countries, not just cast off their usedmachines for a tax credit. More information providers need to give students andinstructors free or reduced-cost access to the world’s treasure troves of engineeringinformation. And more professional organizations like the IEEE need to help coun-tries like Nigeria develop their technical communities and network people withtheir peers across the globe.

Africa is littered with the detritus of broken promises—crumbling roads,pathetic power-generation capacity, poor public-health systems, filthy water, andvirtually nothing in the way of safe public transportation or waste disposal.That’s not to say the situation is hopeless; on the contrary, the people Ander-son and I met on our travels in Nigeria have the will and the intellectual where-withal to create hope in the midst of grinding poverty. And they can use all thehelp they can get. •

NETWORKING NIGERIA WEB SITE Continued from page 1

3p.coverfeatures.lo 2/7/06 3:12 PM Page 8

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• Google and Ultraseek searchengines make findinginformation easier.

• Tabs for broad categories such asMembership display links topages with more specificinformation such as Benefits,Costs, and Qualifications.

ply, “What do you want to do?” Linksbelow the box are tied to the most fre-quently viewed parts of the site, such asthe page for renewing subscriptions orone for searching for an article in theIEEE Xplore digital library.

The site’s search capability has alsobeen improved. In the past, users lookingfor, say, a specific IEEE technical article orconference often had to leave the site touse an outside search engine. Then theyhad to sift through dozens of searchreturns, most of which were unrelated towhat they were looking for. Thanks to theaddition of search tools to the IEEE homepage—two of which are carried throughoutthe entire site—users can rely on the IEEEWeb site in their quest for information.

By typing keywords into the search boxthat appears near the top of any page andclicking on the Google search button, userscan retrieve a variety of IEEE informationfrom anywhere on the Web. Users confi-dent that what they’re after is on the IEEEsite can use the IEEE button, also at the topof the page—which puts the Ultraseekengine to work. Those looking for a spe-

cific IEEE technical article or conferenceproceeding can search in IEEE Xplore.

The revamped site benefited from thecollaboration of many IEEE volunteersand staff members, who have worked ona compressed project schedule since July.Waselik and Joanne Vara, the Web site’smanager, do not see the current versionas final but as a major step towardimproved design, content, and navigation.

“This effort is just the beginning,” Varasays. “We will continue to gather feedbackas we plan the next version of the site.And the measure of our success will con-tinue to be determined by the user.”

Member surveys, usability studies,analyses of how users navigate the site,and site updates will be regular parts ofthe IEEE’s monitoring of its Web site,says Waselik. Indeed, standing still is notan option.

“Users’ expectations have been raisedby their experience with other sites thatare continually becoming more sophisti-cated,” King explains. “While we’re notwhere we want to be yet, this is a signifi-cant improvement.” •

3p.coverfeatures.lo 2/7/06 3:13 PM Page 9

FEATURE

10 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

BY TRUDY E. BELL

N THIS AGE OF TERRORISM ANDidentity theft, many organizations wanta fast, secure way of verifying that youare who you say you are. Identification

is a pressing problem all over the world, soit’s no wonder that an IEEE journal thatconcentrates on this field turned out to bethe most-cited journal in 2004.

Passports, driver’s licenses, and othergovernment-issued picture IDs no longersuffice, because they can be readily forged.Automated face recognition, fingerprints,voice identification, corneal or retinal scans,and DNA analysis can identify individualseffectively, but they are too slow for high-volume use, as when thousands of passen-gers are being screened by airport security.At its core, each of those biometric tech-niques relies on some form of pattern recog-nition. A person could be recognized, forexample, by the shape and highlights of theface or the colors and shapes in a cornea.

Much R&D is under way to develop tech-niques for identifying individuals quickly, soit’s not surprising that a magazine that cov-ers pattern recognition and analysis shouldprove popular. In fact, it can be argued that

in 2004, the monthly IEEE Transactions onPattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence(known as TPAMI) was the most popular ofall. Of 209 electrical and electronics engi-neering publications, the magazine wasranked as the most-cited journal that year,according to the most recent science journalcitation report, released in 2005 by Thom-son Scientific, a book and journals publisherlocated in Philadelphia and London. TPAMI(pronounced tee-PAM-i) also ranked fifthin citations among 347 computer sciencejournals. Thomson Scientific’s citation fig-ures are widely valued because they arebelieved to be a measure of a journal’simpact in its field.

TPAMI introduces both fundamentaland advanced techniques for solving prob-lems in computer vision, shape, and textureanalysis; artificial intelligence; medicalimage interpretation; document image pro-cessing; and biometrics, which is the studyof automated methods for recognizinghumans based upon one or more physicalor behavioral traits.

“Face recognition is one of the hottestareas of research in biometrics,” says IEEESenior Member David J. Kriegman, the vol-unteer editor of the 28-year-old monthly,

which is sponsored by the IEEE ComputerSociety. Many researchers are interested inface recognition because of its potential foridentifying people quickly. Applicationsrange from video surveillance of crowds tothe indexing of commercial or privatelibraries of photographs.

But the journal is just one way the IEEEdisseminates information in the field of pat-tern recognition. Another way is to holdconferences of experts in the field. The IEEEComputer Society sponsors the annualIEEE Conference on Computer Vision andPattern Recognition, which is scheduled for17 to 23 June at the Kimmel Center at NewYork University, in New York City.

“I’M ME, HONEST!” “Facial images can becaptured from a distance, and the imagescan be recorded, stored, sorted, and pro-cessed,” points out Shizuo Sakamoto, prin-cipal researcher at NEC Corp.’s Media andInformation Research Laboratories, inKanagawa, Japan. Because people’s facesare usually exposed, subjects don’t have togo through any special actions such as plac-ing a hand or finger on a sensor or scrapingthe inside of a cheek for a DNA sample.(Sakamoto has written articles for the IEEESystems, Man, and Cybernetics Society’sjournals. His most recent article, “Develop-ment of Face Recognition Techniques atNEC Laboratories,” appeared in the soci-ety’s September eNewsletter.)

But there are innumerable complicatingfactors to automating the face-recognitionchore. People’s faces change as they age, orthey gain or lose weight. Cosmetics cantransform a person’s appearance, as can ill-ness or fatigue. “A person’s appearance canchange significantly, even overnight,” saysHarry Wechsler, an IEEE Fellow and directorof the Distributed and Intelligent Computa-tion Center at George Mason University,Fairfax, Va. Wechsler is also on TPAMI’seditorial board. “I would look very differenttomorrow morning after a transatlanticflight, unshaven and exhausted, than Iwould today when I board.”

But even absent an actual facial alter-ation, “the appearance of a face changesdrastically when pose and illumination arevaried,” Sakamoto says. Sakamoto’s groupat NEC is working on a face-recognitionmethod that resists being fooled by varia-tions in lighting or angle of pose. Firstthey need to figure out how shadows andhighlights vary for all angles of lightingand pose for a face; then they want to seewhether that knowledge could help a com-puter identify someone from a two-dimen-sional image. To that end the group builta physical three-dimensional model of aspecific individual’s face and set it oppositea single lamp that could be positioned at

different angles around the model. With arange finder and reflectance meter thatalso could be moved around the model,they measured distances to features, plusthe brightness of reflections, the darknessof shadows, the angles between visible fea-tures, and the length and shape of shad-ows and the features casting them.

Then, armed with all those biometricmeasurements as a basis for comparison,they presented a computer with one of 14 000test images of 200 individuals, made underdramatically different illumination condi-tions and viewed from angles ranging up to60 degrees sideward and 45 degrees upwardfrom a frontal pose. Fully 94 percent of thetime, no matter the angle of illumination orpose, the computer correctly identified theperson, Sakamoto says. Pleased with thatearly success, he and his group are nowexploring ways of applying their technique toa wider selection of human faces while min-imizing the computation time required forcomparing images.

“NO, IT’S NOT ME!” Getting a computer torecognize and track a single person in acrowd, another potential application for facerecognition, is deceptively difficult. “First ithas to detect or locate the face—which is notsimple where a lot of people are moving,especially when the closed-circuit TV sur-veillance camera is positioned too high fora full view,” Wechsler explains. “Then thecomputer has to keep track of that facewhen it disappears behind other people’sheads, so it knows it is the same face whenit reemerges.” For that reason, among oth-ers, it is becoming clear that traditionalblack-and-white closed-circuit TV surveil-lance systems must give way to color. “Colorgives important additional information onthe skin and its texture, and on distin-guishing skin from cosmetics, fabrics, orother objects,” Wechsler says.

Even if a face in a crowd seems to beara close resemblance to an image in a sus-pect watch-list database, “how close is closeenough?” he asks. “Two pictures of thesame person can be more different thanpictures of two different people!”

That fact, he says, accounts for the highincidence of false-positive identificationsby today’s surveillance security systems,alarming innocent citizens when they aredetained because of their resemblance to acriminal suspect.

To combat false-positive identifications,Wechsler is investigating open-set recog-nition, which he and coauthor Fayin Liexplain in “Open-Set Face RecognitionUsing Transduction,” which appeared inNovember’s TPAMI.

Positive identification of a person as-sumes that a subject has been enrolled, or

I

3p.facerecognition.page10-11 2/7/06 1:56 PM Page 10

N IMPORTANT PART OF THE IEEE’S MISSION is to recognize the professional achievements of its members. Theinstitute’s highest honor is the rank of IEEE Fellow, bestowed on members who have contributed “to the advancement orapplication of engineering science and technology.” For 2006 the IEEE Board of Directors named 271 new IEEE Fellows.A

Meet the Fellows of 2006has been seen before—such as when a personis photographed for a company ID card. That’sclosed-set recognition. But in a surveillancesystem, the number of people who pass a secu-rity camera is far greater than the number ofsuspects whose images appear in a watch-listdatabase. So, to avoid misidentifying innocentpeople, “you want a computer to be able tosay, ‘I’ve never seen this face before.’ That isnot at all the same thing as positive identifica-tion, which answers the question: ‘Who is thisperson?’” Wechsler explains. “The distinctionis not trivial or straightforward.”

As much to avoid false positives as toensure positive identification, Wechsler isintrigued by a new trend of combining meth-ods for identifying people, pairings that “willbe part of the next generation of passports,” hesays. An obvious pairing might be combiningfaces with fingerprints. Another useful pairingmight combine two-dimensional photographswith three-dimensional information, such as aholographic image, he says. But also usefulwould be a video or sequence of frames lastinga few seconds showing how a person speaks ormoves the head or limbs. “People recognizeeach other at a distance by gestures as well asby appearance,” Wechsler says, referring tothe way a person stands or walks and the waypeople gesture with their hands and makeother expressive movements. Gestures mightbe especially helpful when searching for a sus-pect walking in a crowd, he says.

FOR GOOD GUYS, TOO Because changes inappearance, gestures, and coloring also revealinformation about a person’s health, re-searchers are interested in potential medicalapplications of what’s coming to be called “faceprocessing,” Wechsler says. “Suppose an eld-erly person has a stroke and is paralyzed andcan’t speak but can understand conversation,”he says. “We would like to have the computeras an assistant, so face processing might helpfamily and friends understand what the personis truly feeling and thinking.”

Some early commercial applications offace processing may help people in theireveryday lives. “One company is testing face-recognition software to help organizelibraries of photographs,” TPAMI’s Krieg-man says, “so you could, for example, ask itto go through hundreds of digital images ofyour family and pick out all those of yourfavorite aunt.”

Without doubt, the software is improv-ing. “A 2002 test of face-recognition softwareconducted by NIST [the U.S. National Insti-tute of Standards and Technology] concludedthat it is about as accurate as fingerprintingwas in 1998—in other words, not tooshabby,” Kriegman says. Right now, NIST isconducting another round of competitivetesting and is scheduled to publish its resultsthis year. •

AWARDS

THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 11

Magdy Abadir

Bhupendra Ahuja

Muhammad Alam

Roy Alexander

Cesare Alippi

Charles Alpert

Peter Andrekson

Andreas Andreou

Jorge Angeles

Yasuhiko Arakawa

Mituhiko Araki

Bruce Archambeault

Kultegin Aydin

Mark Balas

Harrison Barrett

Andrew Barto

James Barton

Issa Batarseh

Paul Bernhardt

Gary Bernstein

Steven Best

Vijay Bhatkar

Antonio Bicchi

Marc Bodson

Philip Bolin

Dushan Boroyevich

Karlheinz Brandenburg

Jack Brassil

Andrei Broder

Leslie Brown

Mary Capelli-

Schellpfeffer

James Carlo

Carlo Cecati

Chung-Ju Chang

Hsinchun Chen

Tongwen Chen

William Chen

Daizhan Cheng

Giovanni Cherubini

Ali Chowdhury

Christos Christopoulos

Steve Chung

Yun Chung

Donald Clark

Rowland Clarke

Patrick Combettes

Susan Conry

Ingemar Cox

David Culler

Nadir Dagli

Richard Davis

James Day

Wijesuriya P.

Dayawansa

Christopher Deeney

Jesus del Alamo

Hector De Los Santos

Carlos de Souza

Simon Deleonibus

Seshu Desu

Leonard Dissado

Petar Djuric

Ian Dobson

Marco Dorigo

Hugh Durrant-Whyte

James Dymond

John Eidson

George Eleftheriades

Brig “Chip” Elliott

Michael Erdmann

Eric Evans

Charles Falco

Jeffrey Fessler

Marc Fossorier

Paul Franzon

Nicholas Frigo

Tohru Furuyama

Heyno Garbe

J.J. Garcia-Luna-

Aceves

Rene Garello

Shuzhi Ge

Alex Gershman

Carlo Ghezzi

Arindam Ghosh

Joydeep Ghosh

Martin Giles

Ronald Gilgenbach

Allen Gorin

Dimitry Gorinevsky

Venugopal Govindaraju

Frans Groen

Stephen Grossberg

Gregory Hager

Blake Hannaford

Masanori Hara

Shinji Hara

Ramesh Harjani

Hideki Hashimoto

Hideki Hayashi

Thomas Henzinger

Kazuhiro Hirasawa

Ian Hiskens

Tin Ho

Charles Holland

Larry Hornbeck

Wen-Lian Hsu

Qin Huang

Johannes Huber

Todd Hubing

Katsuo Ikeda

Eastwood Im

Naoki Inagaki

Waguih Ishak

Andre Ivanov

Hamid Jafarkhani

Kanti Jain

Sandra Johnson

Geza Joos

Janusz Kacprzyk

Makoto Kaneko

Muhammad Khan

Masatsugu Kidode

Tetsuro Kobayashi

Ljupco Kocarev

Gerhard Koepf

Kazuhiro Kosuge

Alex Kot

Youji Kotsuka

William Krenik

Raghu Krishnapuram

Frank Kschischang

Anurag Kumar

Vijay Kumar

Luis Kun

Wolfgang Kunz

Tadahiro Kuroda

Hideo Kuwahara

John Larson

Swamy Laxminarayan

Michael Lebby

Ellsworth LeDrew

Raphael Lee

Shawmin Lei

Ye Li

Mong-Song Liang

Zhi-Pei Liang

David Lilja

Bin-Da Liu

Johan Liu

Yu-Hwa Lo

William Lockley

Darrell Long

Michael Loui

David Lucantoni

Charles Luther

Richard Lynch

Enrico Macii

Armand Makowski

Jitendra Malik

Gary May

Steven McLaughlin

Ian McNab

Michael McShane

Nancy Mead

Vladimiro Miranda

Daleep Mohla

James Moore

Amir Mortazawi

William Moses

Marek Moszynski

Hiroshi Murase

Malakondaiah Naidu

Masao Nakagawa

Janardan Nanda

Erich Neuhold

Paul Nielsen

Yoram Ofek

Juro Ohga

Sedat Olcer

Richard Olshen

Ariel Orda

Alon Orlitsky

William Osborne

John Osburn

Douglas

O’Shaughnessy

Roberto Ottoboni

Thomas Overbye

Thrasyvoulos Pappas

Edward Petersen

Marios Polycarpou

Sitthichai

Pookaiyaudom

Douglass Post

Frederick Raab

Muralidhar

Rangaswamy

Richard Ranson

Sudhakar Rao

Carey Rappaport

Ulrich Reimers

Yves Robert

Thomas Robertazzi

Hermann Rohling

Yves Rolain

Joseph Rose

David Rosenblum

Emmanuel Rosencher

Alfred Rufer

Alain Sabot

John Sahalos

Hiroshi Sakou

Resve Saleh

Guenther Schmidt

Henning Schulzrinne

David Seiler

Gianluca Setti

Jeff Shamma

Naresh Shanbhag

Amit Sheth

Chuan-Jin Richard Shi

Heung-Yeung Shum

Ari H. Sihvola

Antonio Simoes Costa

Dirk Slock

Vijay Sood

Richard Spencer

Rayadurgam Srikant

Göran Stemme

David Su

Gary Sullivan

Masatoshi Suzuki

Madhavan

Swaminathan

Katia Sycara

Shuichi Tahara

Yu-Chong Tai

Frank Talke

Tomohiko Taniguchi

Reese Terry

Craig Thompson

Kenneth Thompson

Tsuneo Tokumitsu

David Townsend

Chi Tse

Charles Turner

Jan Uddenfeldt

Nikolaos Uzunoglu

Luc Vandendorpe

Paul Van Dooren

Usha Varshney

Venugopal Veeravalli

Dinesh Verma

Richard Vinter

Ian Walker

Huei Wang

Lihong Wang

Roy Want

Katsuyoshi Washio

Tadashi Watanabe

Werner Weber

Andreas Weisshaar

Burnell West

Edgar Williams

Gerald Witt

Martin Wong

Sally Wood

Dennis Woodford

Min Xie

Murty Yalla

Hong Yan

Jan Zehentner

Lixia Zhang

Qi-jun Zhang

Nanning Zheng

Reza Zoughi

3p.facerecognition.page10-11 2/7/06 1:57 PM Page 11

12 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

REG OLSEN has had along and accomplishedcareer so far. He’s anIEEE Fellow, the co-

founder of two successfulhigh-tech companies, and the recip-ient of a string of awards. And ifthat isn’t enough, last October hespent 10 days in outer space, visitingthe International Space Station—atrip Olsen funded himself, payingsome US $20 million from his self-made wealth for a seat on board acramped Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Olsen’s journey to the stationstemmed from a lifelong interestin space, sparked by the launch ofthe first satellite, Sputnik I, in 1957.Olsen was in seventh grade andalready knew that he was markedfor a technical career. His fatherwas a New York City electrician, andas a young child Olsen consideredhis father’s toolbox an extension ofhis toy box. But Olsen’s aspirationsran into trouble in high school.

“I was a classic ’50s greaser type, moreinterested in fooling around, cars, and chas-ing girls than studying. I was actually con-victed of juvenile delinquency, suspendedtwice from school, and flunked trigonometryin my senior year,” Olsen says.

He decided to join the U.S. Army. How-ever, because he was only 17 years old, heneeded his parents’ consent on the enlist-ment forms, and his father persuaded him totry college for six months, with the under-standing that if Olsen didn’t like it, his fatherwould sign the army paperwork. Olsenagreed, and after retaking trigonometry dur-ing the summer, he scraped into FairleighDickinson University in Teaneck, N.J.

THE RIGHT CROWD A chance meeting withsome foreign students as he was waiting toregister for his college classes proved to bea turning point in Olsen’s life. They invitedhim to study with them, and they turnedout to be extremely motivated scholars. “Ifthey flunked out, they were going back totheir home countries. Now, I could havejust as easily met a fraternity crowd, and itwould have been all over for me,” Olsen

remembers. Within a few semesters, Olsenhad turned around his academic career. Hecompleted his undergraduate years withtwo bachelor’s degrees—one in physics andthe other in electrical engineering.

The IEEE played an early role in Olsen’slife when, in 1967, he attended its annualtrade show in New York City. “We’d go to getthe free pens and stuff like that,” he says,“but I met someone from the University ofVirginia, in Charlottesville, and he talkedme into going to Virginia.” There Olsencompleted a Ph.D. in materials science,which turned out to be the foundation of hislater commercial success. “My life has beena series of stories like that. I never had thisgrand plan; it’s always just been a series ofrandom turns,” he says with a chuckle.

After the University of Virginia, Olsenspent 18 months as a visiting scientist atthe University of Port Elizabeth, in SouthAfrica, before joining RCA Laboratories(now the Sarnoff Corp.), in Princeton, N.J.“I thought I’d retire at age 65 still workingfor RCA as a scientist, but [after 11 years] Ideveloped a photodetector made of indium-gallium-arsenide,” Olsen says. The detectorwas moved to production in 1981, and “as

we were doing this, it just occurred to methat I could do this better, faster, andcheaper.” Despite his lack of business expe-rience, in 1984 he cofounded Epitaxx, acompany that made emitters and detectorsfor fiber optics. Olsen found the entrepre-neurial life suited him: “I think I foundmyself professionally.” he says. “I was agood research scientist—I wasn’t the best.When I started a business, I finally felt,This is my niche.”

Olsen sold the successful Epitaxx in 1990and, after casting around for a few months,decided to cofound, with Marshall Cohen,an infrared-imaging company called Sen-sors Unlimited, in Princeton. It, too, proveda commercial success, and Olsen recentlysold it as well.

BLASTOFF AT 60 By 2003, though, Olsenwas ready—and wealthy enough—to con-sider pursuing his Sputnik dreams. Inaddition to the $20 million price tag on theflight, Olsen submitted to two years of rig-orous training in Moscow and Houston—which almost came to naught when a med-ical condition caused the Russians to benchhim. Fortunately, the problem was resolved

in time for Olsen, now 60 years old,to complete his training, and heblasted off from Baikonur Cos-modrome, in Kazakhstan, for thespace station in the company of cos-monaut Valery Tokarev and astro-naut Bill McArthur.

McArthur and Tokarev wererelieving the previous station crew,Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips,at the end of their six-month tour.Olsen spent his week on board thestation happily helping the crewsswap over, conducting some bio-medical experiments for the Euro-pean Space Agency, talking to stu-dents via amateur radio, andlooking out the window.

Olsen returned to Earth withKrikalev and Phillips, and not with-out some drama. A still-unexplainedpressure drop prompted Krikalev toperiodically order Olsen to crackopen an oxygen valve—which onlyOlsen could reach—during the

descent from the vacuum of space, inorder to maintain the cabin atmosphere.(Olsen hazards that a strap may have got-ten caught in a hatch seal, causing a slowleak.) In retrospect, Olsen realized thepotential danger, “but while it was hap-pening, there was no panic; Krikalev wasright on top of it.” The crew landed backin Kazakhstan safely.

Since his return, with the sale of Sen-sors Unlimited wrapped up, Olsen is con-sidering what his next big project will be.Meanwhile, he spends about half his timetalking to school groups. He worries thatthe lack of interest in technical careersamong America’s youth will be damaging:“The U.S. achieved its greatness in largepart through its advances in science andengineering, and I want to see us remainstrong in that,” he says. By using his expe-rience in space as a way to encourage inter-est in science and technology among stu-dents, Olsen says he feels that hisexpensive voyage will benefit many others.

“If it just ended as a joyride in space, itmight be hard for me to justify the money,”he says. “But the more time I can spendwith kids, the more I can justify it.” •

MEMBER PROFILE

Millionaire Member Rockets Into Space BY STEPHEN CASS

IEEE Fellow Greg Olsen floats inside the International Space Station. He spent 10 days in space.

G

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THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 13

BY EVAN KOBLENTZ

HEN FREDERICK EMMONS TERMANgraduated in June 1924 from the Massa-chusetts Institute of Technology, the holderof only its eighth doctorate in electricalengineering, he could not have knownwhat a marvelous career lay ahead. He

would become one of the best-known university teachersof electrical engineering in the United States; he wouldwrite Radio Engineering, which would become a standardtextbook following its 1932 introduction; and he wouldwork with some of the industry’s best-known people andcompanies. Nor could he have known that his careerwould be immortalized in an award-winning biography.

Similarly, neither could C.Stewart Gillmor have knownwhen he entered Stanford’s engi-neering school in California as afreshman back in 1956 that hewould write that biography. On 4 March in St. Louis, Gillmor willreceive the IEEE-USA Award forDistinguished Literary Contribu-tions Furthering the Public Un-derstanding of the Profession, forFred Terman at Stanford (US $70,Stanford University Press).

Gillmor remembers how hemet the already well-known Ter-man during his very first day oncampus. He introduced himselfto Terman as “Kansas City, andradio engineering.” “Good man!”Terman replied, and Gillmorfound himself engrossed withTerman and his career ever sincethat moment.

He never knew Terman per-sonally, except for a few random encounters with himon the Stanford campus, although he did befriend Ter-man’s son, Lewis, when both were student disk jockeysat the university’s radio station. (The younger Terman isnow a candidate for 2007 IEEE President-Elect.) AndGillmor himself later was a guest lecturer in Stanford’selectrical engineering department. He now is a profes-sor of history and science at Wesleyan University, inMiddletown, Conn.

Information for his book came to Gillmor from a vari-ety of sources, with the most important items comingfrom the Terman family. Gillmor also mined material hefound in Stanford’s archives and at the foundations set upby William Hewlett and David Packard, of the well-knownHewlett-Packard Co., who were Terman’s students in the

thirties. And Gillmor conducted scores of interviews withTerman’s former colleagues. “And I’ve got stories hardlyanyone knows anything about, because they’re based onletters never made public before,” he says.

Terman’s formative years were not exactly ordinary,according to Gillmor. For example, Terman studied at MIT under VannevarBush, the American engi-neer and noted scienceadministrator, and he wasa friend and tutor of Her-bert Hoover Jr., the son ofthe 31st president of theUnited States. Terman alsoexcelled at track and field,

but a bout of tuberculosis forced him to leave athleticsuntil he was cured.

Most of the book focuses on Terman’s career from thetime he accepted a Stanford teaching post in 1925 until hisretirement as Stanford’s university provost in 1965. (Hewas born 7 June 1900 and died 19 December 1982.)

Terman’s influence extended well beyond Stanford’sundergraduate program. For example, when Hewlett andPackard were his students, Terman persuaded them tostart a new company based on what was then state-of-the-art research on the resistance-tuned oscillator, accordingto Gillmor. The result of their following his advice was theHewlett-Packard Co. Based just off the Stanford campusin Palo Alto, it began as an instrument maker and isnow a global multibillion-dollar maker of digital com-

puters, printers, and instrumentation equipment. Terman moved to New York City in 1941 to serve as

president of one of the IEEE’s predecessor societies, theInstitute of Radio Engineers, and worked with Bush onradar countermeasures for the military during WorldWar II. He returned to Stanford as dean of engineering

in 1946, and he helped set upand then lead the new Stan-ford Industrial Park in theearly 1950s.

It was Terman who, in1956, persuaded transistorcoinventor William Shockleyto relocate from Bell Tele-phone Labs, in New Jersey, tostart his own company on asite near Stanford. The areasoon came to be known as Sil-icon Valley because of thegreat number of companiesexploiting silicon technologythat sprang up there. Termanhad become interested in tran-sistors in 1948, and Shockley,as it happened, was a longtimefriend and Palo Alto native,Gillmor explains.

Only a year after Shockleyfounded his firm, in 1957,eight disgruntled engineerson Shockley’s staff left to start

their own company, Fairchild Semi-conductor, which eventually led to Intel anddozens of Silicon Valley success stories.Another initiative of Terman’s was theStanford Linear Accelerator Center, whichopened in 1966. It took 12 years to planand has produced five Nobel Prize winners.

Despite Terman’s many professionalaccomplishments, he was not always well liked by hispeers, Gillmor notes. After meetings, “people would goout very angry, or they’d go out scared. But he didn’t doit to be malicious.” He was just very focused on gettingthings done, Gillmor explains. “To some historians hewas this cold, mean guy. He wasn’t. He was just extremelyhard-working,” Gillmor asserts, “and Terman’s peers ulti-mately came to respect him.”

All royalties from the book are being donated to Stan-ford’s Hewlett-Packard Graduate Engineering Fellowshipawards. Gillmor’s research for the book was cosponsoredby the William R. Hewlett Revocable Trust and the Davidand Lucile Packard Foundation. Gillmor’s next project isa biography of Hal Middleton, the last student of therenowned Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. •

HISTORY

W

Biography of Legendary StanfordProfessor Wins IEEE-USA Award

Stanford professor Frederick Terman [near left andabove] advised his students William Hewlett [leftcenter] and David Packard [far left] to start acompany based on then state-of-the-art researchon the resistance-tuned oscillator. Hewlett-Packard Co. is now a multibillion-dollar maker ofcomputers, printers, and instrumentationequipment. [The photo at left was taken in 1952,the one above in 1965.]

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BY ALLISON ICKOWICZ

Sure, teenagers love listening to their favoritemusic on iPods and snapping pictures of theirfriends with camera phones, but do theyknow who made those gadgets possible? Mostaren’t aware that engineers are behind these

cool technologies. To help youngsters understand howengineers affect the world they live in, the IEEE Educa-tional Activities Board (EAB) has been working on a pro-gram aimed at familiarizing preuniversity students withbasic engineering concepts.

The driving force behind the project is the IEEE Centerfor Pre-University Engineering Education, an outreachorganization that encourages students to study engineeringin college. It is hoped that the center, set up and directed bythe EAB, will be of use to educators, engineering associa-tions, and industry. The center was funded last year by a US $98 000 grant from the IEEE Board of Directors.

“The ultimate objective is to reach several tens of thou-sands of young people every year—students who will readour materials and use our Web sites for information,”says Moshe Kam, IEEE Vice President, Educational Activ-ities. “We want to provide this audience with a new, fresh,and exciting introduction to engineering and give them theresources they need to make informed decisions aboutengineering as a career.”

The center is working on two projects:• Expanding the EAB’s existing Teacher In-Service Pro-

gram, which offers professional development work-shops on various subjects that include technical topics.

• Developing a fun and informative Web site forschool counselors, students, teachers, and parentsthat links to a searchable database of engineeringinformation.

TEACHER IN-SERVICE PROGRAM Preuniversity teacherswould be taught a hands-on activity related to a technicalsubject—on such topics as the basics of motors, switches,and simple machines—during in-service days. IEEE vol-unteers would help the teachers work their way throughan activity. The idea is for the teachers to return to theirschools and lead the same activity in their classrooms. (Formore on the Teacher In-Service Program, see “TeachingTeachers Technology,” The Institute, March 2005, p. 11.)

The program has been going strong since 2001,beginning in Florida’s West Coast Section in Region 3(the southeastern United States). IEEE volunteers haveworked with more than 600 preuniversity teachers, whohave had more than 63 000 students in their classes dur-ing the time.

In July more than 60 representatives from 23 IEEEsections in Region 3 received training on developingactivities and learning how to form long-lasting collabo-rations with educators. The EAB wants to expand theprogram to all IEEE regions.

“We think that the Teacher In-Service Program offersa great way for IEEE members to impact their local schoolsystem through their volunteerism,” says Bill Marshall,chair of the Atlanta Section. “Everyone who attended theJuly session was extremely supportive of the programand looked forward to participating in it.”

The EAB has set a goal for the volunteer trainers tocollaborate with approximately 1000 educators by theend of 2006, and it is planning training sessions in thenortheastern and central United States as well as in Asia,the Pacific, and South Africa.

ENGINEERING WEB SITE The effort to develop a Web sitecame out of a meeting in February 2005, led by the IEEE.At the meeting were the American Society of Civil Engi-neers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, theAmerican School Counselor Association, and the NationalAssociation for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).The groups met to discuss how engineering associationscould do a better job of providing counselors with infor-mation about engineering careers. The meeting made theIEEE representatives aware that school counselors notonly are inadequately informed about engineering butthat they also needed a resource to provide them withinformation on university programs and careers.

To help fill that need, the IEEE began working with

IBM to develop a Web site dubbed “Try Engineering.”IBM had helped build a similar site called “Try Science”(http://www.tryscience.org), which will provide a link tothe Try Engineering site. Now under construction, TryEngineering (http://www.tryengineering.org) is expectedto be ready in June. Plans call for the site to provide gen-eral information on engineering and familiarize visitorswith the profession and its various disciplines.

An IBM design team recently finished creating the TryEngineering logo and is working on a number of compo-nents such as a description of the life of an engineer, vir-tual games, and a feature that will allow visitors to ask anengineer a question. The questions and answers will beposted on a public forum blackboard for all visitors to see.Also in the works are lesson plans that teachers can down-load and use in the classroom.

“This Web site will offer some very valuable tools forpeople like me who aren’t extremely familiar with engi-neering,” says Malika Johnson, the assistant director ofcollege counseling at the Bryn Mawr School, a college-preparatory institution for girls in Baltimore. As chair ofthe NACAC’s National Professional Development Com-mittee, Johnson participated in a focus group thatreviewed a prototype of the Try Engineering site. She saysshe liked what she saw.

“Other career guidance sites cover numerous topics,but this one will help school counselors learn about dif-ferent engineering disciplines and engineering careers,”she says. “In turn, the counselors will be able to speak totheir students about engineering and guide them on dif-ferent careers.”

Especially helpful will be the site’s University Findersearch engine, says Kam. By entering geographic criteriasuch as a state, province, or territory, visitors can use thetool to find universities with accredited engineering pro-grams. Visitors can also search by engineering discipline.Initially the site will provide information relevant only tothe United States and Canada, but data about engineeringprograms in other countries will be added by next year.

“The unique University Finder feature is one compo-nent that will make Try Engineering a valuable resourcefor the preuniversity education community,” says Kam.

Once IBM finishes the site, the IEEE plans to takeover, maintaining it and developing additional content.The institute is working with other engineering associa-tions to add information related to disciplines such asautomotive, civil, and mechanical engineering. And theschool counselor organizations say they will stay involved.

Says Bryn Mawr’s Johnson: “Since the Internet playssuch a huge role in how children research information andcommunicate today, I think children will find the Website convenient and easy to use.” •

14 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

Program PromotesEngineering to Young People

EDUCATION

FOR MORE INFORMATION on IEEE preuniversity

activities, go to http://www.ieee.org/education

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THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 15

ORENSIC INVESTIGATORS ON TV PROGRAMS deal mainly with physicalclues and crime scenes. In the real world, forensic investigators deal more andmore with the invisible: information. Researchers in many fields are con-cerned with safeguarding information, and detecting and tracing or prevent-ing breaks in information security.

Therefore, the IEEE Signal Processing Society is about to launch a new journal, IEEETransactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS). Debuting this month, initiallyas a quarterly, it will “give a home to research that is currently scattered,” says IEEE Fel-low Pierre Moulin, its editor in chief. “Information-processing people, biometricspeople, photographic experts—all these sources have security and commu-nication and signal-processing theory in common. And many of theirproblems have a common math framework. A journal makes it eas-ier for such people to share ideas,” he says.

Why now? The answer comes from K.J. Ray Liu of the Univer-sity of Maryland, editor in chief of IEEE Signal Processing Magazineand the IEEE Signal Processing Society’s new vice president forpublications. “Today, when content can be delivered anywhere inthe world, we have to worry about how to protect it,” Liu says. “Forexample, music downloads or DVD downloads—legal or illegal ver-sions? How do you trace it? Who did it illegally, and how?

“Forensics and security are inseparable,” he adds. For example, if youreceive an important image from, say, Iraq or Afghanistan, “it makes sev-eral hops to the United States. How do you tell it is secure? How do you tell ithas not been tampered with? For security you use cryptography and encryp-tion. If you think it leaked, you want to do forensic analysis to analyzewhat happened to the data en route.”

DATA CLUES But forensics involves more than security. Youwant to know who the culprit is. You want to know, Whoinfringed on digital rights management? Who tamperedwith content? And you need to analyze: Who did it? When?These are forensic issues, which have nothing to do with security, Liu says.

Information forensics consists of “extracting information about what hap-pened to data,” explains Moulin, professor of electrical and computer engineering at theUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “You have data in hand and you want to inferwhat was done to the data before you got it, what channels it may have gone through, whatkind of transmission media, and what kind of tampering it may have undergone.”

One forensic technique useful for multimedia is watermarking, which embedscontent-identification data that eludes human senses. Like perceptual coding, which isused for compressing audio and video, “watermarking takes advantage of the fact thatour eyes, ears, and brains are not sensitive to certain stimuli,” Liu says. “The purposeis to hide information being added.”

The U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses watermarking when itwants to keep movies sent to its members voting on the Oscars from “pirate” duplica-tion. Today, each disc is individually watermarked, so the source of pirated copies canbe traced. “It would work even on analog tapes,” says IEEE Fellow Ton Kalker of Hewlett-Packard Co., a member of the TIFS editorial board. “Watermarking survives in anydomain—it’s holographically embedded in the signal. As long as the signal quality is

high, it will come through. It is very hard to get rid of it without destroying the signal.” A somewhat similar technique is extracting “robust summaries” from large media

files that will survive modifications of the main file as long as there is sufficient simi-larity to the original file. “This is similar to what is done in cryptography and referredto as cryptographic hashes,” Kalker says, “but with the difference that the smallestchange of the main file completely alters the hashing” (an algorithm for rapid dataretrieval from large files).

Noise analysis can also trace a signal’s history, says Moulin. “If I receive an audio fileI may want to determine whether it was transmitted in the digital or analog domain. The

noise in every medium has its own characteristics, often physical or statistical. Ifyou have a statistical description of each medium’s noise, you can sometimes

determine which media were involved,” he says. On the security side, the new journal will cover attacks and coun-

termeasures, encryption and decryption, authentication, privacyprotection, and other aspects of data protection. But it will also dealwith more general aspects of security (including surveillance, lawenforcement, crime prevention, and counterterrorism) and bio-metric systems that identify people based on fingerprints, irisscans, faces, hands, gaits, voices, or handwriting. The journal will

also cover such broad issues as the interplay of technology withlegal and ethical issues, security, and privacy.

LARGER FORUM TIFS is not the first IEEE journal tocover security and forensic issues. The IEEE Computer

Society publishes IEEE Transactions on Dependable andSecure Computing. Moulin considers it “not a competitor but

rather a complementary journal. The papers they publish aremainly computer-related, whereas ours will be more on signal processing andcommunications.”

While campaigning for approval of TIFS, Moulin and Kalker preparedthree supplements to IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing. “We got so manysubmissions,” says Kalker, “that we did not have enough space for them.That reinforced our argument that we needed a separate journal, with a

broader scope. The IEEE community working on information security and forensicsscattered its research over different Transactions.

“Now there will be a common discussion forum,” Kalker says, “bringing togetherIEEE members in many fields who have forensics and security in common: cryptog-raphy, biometry, image analysis, steganalysis (detection of messages concealed througha process called steganography), secure processing, and more.”

Moulin also intends to bring to IEEE members “some of the research that takes placeoutside the IEEE, in areas like biometrics and photography. People working in these areaspublish elsewhere because the IEEE has no journals specifically for them.” Adds Kalker:“People in our community are members of several organizations, such as SPIE [the Inter-national Society for Optical Engineering, http://www.spie.org] and ACM [Association forComputing Machinery, http://www.acm.org]. So we expect lots of cross-fertilization. Butthis Transactions is focused on the IEEE; if we can reach others, fine.”

For full details, see the call for papers, at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/society/sp/tifs.html. •

FEATURE

New Forensics PublicationPursues Information SecurityQuarterly Journal To Be Unveiled This Month BY IVAN BERGER

F

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16 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

BY ERICA VONDERHEID

EEE MEMBERS SEEKING to enrollin continuing education programsneed look no further than the IEEEEducation Partners Program (IEEE-

EPP), which offers classes, seminars, andeven graduate-degree programs, online oron campus—and at a 10-percent discount.What’s more, the educational institutionsin the program have been evaluated andfound to meet criteria set by the IEEE Edu-cational Activities Board (EAB).

“IEEE-EPP is the quintessential mem-ber benefit,” says Barbara Stoler, managingdirector of IEEE Educational Activities. Shepoints out that the 10-percent discountcould cover a member’s yearly IEEE dues,depending on the cost of tuition.

Members can choose from more than6000 courses from 20 providers, includingacademic and private online learningorganizations. The list of partners com-prises well-established institutions suchas the 136-year-old Stevens Institute ofTechnology in Hoboken, N.J., and the 30-year-old Thomson NETg, an online pro-fessional education company.

The IEEE program offers a good assort-ment of classes in terms of subject, price,and duration—from one-day seminars for afew hundred dollars to graduate-leveldegrees for many thousands of dollars. Top-ics include systems engineering, photonics,and radio-frequency identification technol-ogy. Students also can learn project man-agement, business law, and writing skills. Inmost classes members earn continuing edu-cation units or professional developmenthours, the credits engineers need to main-tain professional licenses.

“We’re trying to help members developtheir careers by offering these classes,”says Donald Miklas, director of IEEE Con-tinuing Education. “Members often sayin our surveys that they are looking formore continuing education options, andthis is one of our responses.”

With technology changing so quickly—it is estimated that every five years some 90percent of technology is replaced by newdevelopments, according to Stoler—it is anaxiom that engineers must continue theireducation after earning a degree. EAB

members have long known of engineers’desire to stay current with technology, butthe IEEE-EAB does not have the resourcesto provide the educational content itself.Instead, the EAB searches for qualityclasses and programs being offered byaccredited universities and for-profit learn-ing institutions, in line with the IEEE’s goalof advancing technical education.

“IEEE-EPP showcases the EAB’s role

as a broker for world-class educationalprograms and helps raise the institute’sprofile by providing value to IEEE mem-bers,” says Member Phillip Laplante,who is on the EAB’s Continuing andProfessional Studies Committee. Aneducational institution wanting to part-ner with Educational Activities must fillout a detailed application form that askssuch questions as what technical topics

are taught, whether students can inter-act directly with the instructor, andwhether the institution is sanctioned byABET, the U.S. Accreditation Board forEngineering and Technology, or a simi-lar certifying organization. The com-mittee evaluates the institution’s appli-cation, course catalog, and accreditationto ensure that members can choosefrom a variety of classes, that thecourses cover relevant topics, and thatstudents can gain the credits they desire.

A CLICK AWAY Enrolling in a program iseasy once the selection has been madefrom the list of partnering institutionsand subjects that can be found on IEEE-EPP’s home page at http://www.ieee.org/partners. Just click on the insti-tution’s hyperlink and log in with yourIEEE Web account information.

All partners have created Web portalsthrough which members can access coursecatalogs, register for classes, and receivethe IEEE discount, which shows up at theend of the registration process. Becauseregistration for courses is made throughthe learning institution, not the IEEE,members must abide by any regulationsset by the school, such as prerequisites oreligibility requirements for particularcourses or programs. Also, all questionsabout the courses being offered are han-dled through the educational institutions.

A few programs being offered are tradi-tional campus-based ones, such as those atthe University of Washington at Seattle, butmost are online classes taught through videoconferencing and Internet discussions, orthey are e-mail-based correspondencecourses. Any student can take an onlinecourse regardless of time or place, of course,and thus IEEE-EPP has a 24/7 internationalreach. Most of the courses are in English,but some, such as those from ThomsonNETg, are available in Chinese, French, Ger-man, and Spanish.

With 20 providers and their more than6000 courses at your fingertips on the Web,you may have it easy deciding to continueyour education. •

For more information on IEEE-EPP visit

http://www.ieee.org/web/education/home

PRODUCTS & SERVICES

Education Partners Offer Classes at a Discount

I

The IEEE searches for QUALITYCLASSES being offered by

academic and private organizations

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THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 17

FOR MORE INFORMATION on election procedures, contact

Carrie Loh, IEEE Corporate Activities, at +1 732 562 3934,

e-mail: c.loh@ieee.org; or Fern Katronetsky, IEEE Corporate

Activities, at +1 732 562 3932, e-mail: f.katronetsky@ieee.org.

THE 2006 ELECTIONS

Nomination Alert: The Deadlines NearHE IEEE NOMINATIONS and Appoint-ments (N&A) Committee seeks nomina-tions of IEEE members to serve in bothappointed and elected volunteer positions.The committee sees to it that nominees foroffice appear on ballots, and also recom-mends to the IEEE Board of Directors can-

didates for appointment to standing committees andmajor boards. See the chart, right, for dates critical to thenomination and election process. Names of candidates for2007 must be submitted to the N&A Committee by 15 March 2006. For elected offices see “Up for Election in2006,” below, right.

Committees with openings for volunteers are Audit,Awards Board, Conferences (chair only), Credentials,Employee Benefits, Ethics and Member Conduct, Fellow,History, Individual Benefits and Services, InformationTechnology Strategy, Nominations and Appointments,Strategic Planning, Tellers, and Women in Engineering.

Nominations are also sought for the 2008 IEEE President-Elect and for the 2007 Assembly-elected officers: VicePresident, Educational Activities, Vice President, PublicationServices and Products, and IEEE Secretary/Treasurer orIEEE Secretary and IEEE Treasurer.

General qualifications for volunteers are competence,experience, a willingness to take on the tasks, the time inwhich to participate, enthusiasm, vigor, and the ability tocooperate with others in achieving the objectives of thecommittee or board they serve.

Recommendations to the IEEE N&A Committee canbe made throughout the year at http://www.ieee.org/nominate, by fax at +1 732 981 9515, or by e-mail at nominations@ieee.org.

ELECTED POSITIONS On 1 May, the IEEE Board of Directorswill announce the candidates who will be placed on the2006 ballot for elected positions.

The list will include candidates for IEEE President-Electnominated by the IEEE N&A Committee and selected bythe IEEE Board of Directors. Other candidates will be nom-inees for Director and Director-Elect positions submittedby the respective regional and divisional nominating com-mittees. The ballot will also include the nominees forMembers-at-Large of the Standards Association Board ofGovernors; Vice President-Elect, Technical Activities; andIEEE-USA President-Elect and IEEE-USA Member-at-Large. The Board of Directors is also responsible for plac-ing proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot.

Members who are not nominated but who want to runfor office may do so by filing written petitions with theBoard of Directors by noon Eastern Daylight Time USA(16:00 Greenwich Mean Time), 9 June 2006. To be eligi-ble for placement on the ballot, a petition must be accom-panied by the necessary number of valid voting members’signatures; prospective candidates must meet otherrequirements as well. •

T 2006 DEADLINES AT A GLANCE

Chosen by all voting members:

• President-Elect

Chosen by members in Regions 1–6:

• IEEE–USA President-Elect

• IEEE–USA Member-at-Large

Chosen by members of the IEEEStandards Association:

• IEEE Standards Association Board

of Governors, Members-at-Large

Chosen by members of the respective technical divisions:

• Technical Activities Vice

President-Elect

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Division I (one-year term)

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Division III (one-year term)

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Division V (one-year term)

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Division IX (one-year term)

Chosen by members of the respective regions:

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Region 2 (two-year term)

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Region 4 (two-year term)

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Region 6 (two-year term)

• Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

Region 10 (two-year term)

UP FOR ELECTION IN 2006

15 March• Regional nominating committees submit candidates

for the offices of Regional Delegate-Elect/Director-

Elect, as applicable.

• Divisional nominating committees submit candidates

for the office of Divisional Delegate-Elect/Director-

Elect, as applicable.

• Standards Association submits candidates for the

offices of Standards Association Board of

Governors, Members-at-Large.

• Technical Activities submits candidates for the

office of Technical Activities Vice President-Elect.

• IEEE–USA submits candidates for the offices of

IEEE–USA President-Elect and IEEE–USA Member-

at-Large.

• Recommendations due to IEEE Nominations and

Appointments Committee for 2007 Standing

Committee members, Assembly-elected positions,

and 2008 President-Elect.

1 May• Board of Directors submits to the voting member-

ship a list of nominees for President-Elect;

Delegate/Director or Delegate-Elect/Director-Elect,

as applicable; and other positions to be elected by

voting members for the coming term.

• Board of Directors announces if it intends to put

forward any constitutional amendment(s).

15 May• Deadline for drafts of petitions to be submitted to

Board of Directors to be circulated.

9 June• (Noon EDT USA/16:00 GMT) Petitions for constitu-

tional amendments must be received.

• (Noon EDT USA/16:00 GMT) Petition nominations

for candidates to be elected by the membership

must be received.

• Initial statements by principal initiators and oppo-

nents of constitutional amendment(s) must be

received.

• Corporate Activities must receive initial campaign

statements from all annual election candidates.

19 June• Corporate Activities mails initial statements

by proponents of proposed constitutional

amendment(s) to opponents and opponents’

initial statements to proponents.

5 July• Deadline for rebuttal statements from initiators and

opponents on proposed constitutional amendment(s).

1 September• IEEE annual election ballots are sent to all voting

members.

1 November• (Noon Central Standard Time USA/18:00 GMT) Last

day for ballots to be returned by voting members.

8 November• Last day for ballots to be tallied by Tellers

Committee.

13 November • Last day for announcement of vote tally to IEEE

Board of Directors by Tellers Committee.

15 November• Election of officers by IEEE Assembly.

19 November• Assembly election results announced.

• IEEE Board of Directors acts to accept report of

Tellers Committee.

• IEEE Annual Election results are made official.

3p.deadlines.page17 2/7/06 1:04 PM Page 17

BY LINDSAY ELKINS

O BE SUCCESSFUL, an IEEE event of any kindmust be well planned and well executed. Butwhat good are your efforts if word of your eventnever gets out and few people come?

This is where a little help from public-ity—or public relations—is indispensable. If youknow how to go about it, publicizing an eventinside the IEEE community isn’t as difficult as itmight at first seem.

First, the basics: publicity is a way of getting infor-mation out about anything you want your intendedaudience to be aware of, be it a technical meeting orinformation about an organization, product, orservice. Publicity often takes the form of a newsitem, a feature story, or a meeting listing in yourlocal press, according to Marsha Longshore, theIEEE’s senior manager of corporate communica-tions, in Piscataway, N.J. Longshore, along withIEEE Member Ahsan Upal, gave separate presen-tations on some best practices for garnering pub-licity at the IEEE’s 2005 Sections Congress, held lastOctober in Tampa, Fla. Upal is the publicity chair forthe IEEE Southern Alberta (Canada) Section’s Grad-uates of the Last Decade group.

Holding an IEEE event is the single best tool forcreating awareness of the organization and for bringingin new members and raising funds for operations andscholarships, according to Upal. “A large membershipand dedicated volunteers mean greater financial andhuman resources for offering more services,” he says.“Simply put, a more visible organization can meet itsmandate more effectively.”

KNOW YOUR OBJECTIVES First on your publicity agenda isto determine your objectives based on what you hopeyour event will accomplish. You might simply want asmany of your members as possible to participate in youractivity, or you might want to make people in your areagenerally aware of the impact engineers and technologyprofessionals have on society. Whatever your goal, know-ing clearly what it is will start you off on the right foot.

No matter the kind of event, you must identify your tar-get audience, that is, who should attend—be it IEEE mem-bers, prospective members, students, or the public. Or itmight be one kind of engineer or another. “Understandwho might be interested in the event and why,” says Syra-cuse (N.Y.) Section publicity chair Mary Reidy. “Thendevelop a tailored invitation that includes contact names,phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.” Put an invitation insection newsletters or in announcements in local newspa-pers. Making clear who to contact at your organization willhelp boost the attendance you get.

It is important not only to know who you want to tar-get but also to understand your target audience, pointsout Upal. Knowing what your audience would like to getout of an event will help determine the message to con-vey in your publicity.

If you’re holding a technical conference, topics can,of course, overlap several specialties, says Reidy. “Forexample, an event on advances in nanotechnology mayinvolve chemical, electrical, mechanical, and instru-

mentation specialties,” she says. This meansyou have to target several audiences.

Longshore notes that once the right audience is identi-fied, you should develop a publicity plan as early as possible.“At a minimum, put together a calendar for yourself thatincludes dates and deadlines for putting out your publicityand meeting announcements, and add everything else youcan think of that will help make your event a success,” shesays. And remember to provide information to your sectionnewsletter and Web site, as well as the local newspapers.

Try to get several outlets for your publicity, so newsof your event will make its way to as many people aspossible. Think outside the box and make informationavailable in other places, too. A display at a universitycan be helpful in getting news of your event to inter-ested people, and even attract new members, accordingto David Bower, Florida West Coast Section publicitychair. He suggests preparing a simple stand-up dis-play that advertises your event and including with ithandout materials that describe the IEEE.

Keep the display simple and focused. Ask yourselfwhat you want to promote, and tailor your display accord-ingly. With some slight modification, you can use the dis-play at educational institutions to publicize events and atregular IEEE section meetings, as well as at companies

employing engineers, as a way to promote membership.Always obtain permission, of course, before placing adisplay on someone else’s property.

KNOW THE LOCAL MEDIA Learning how your local mediaoperate can help you in publicizing your event. “Itshouldn’t be difficult to get your event listed in commu-nity calendars or newspapers’ weekly event listings,where they exist—if you do your homework,” Longshoresays. She notes that in many countries you can readily getaccess to journalists, although in some countries youmust go through press clubs or pay fees for placements.“In all countries, building relationships with the localmedia can help,” she says.

Bower recommends using local newspapers for suchevents as meeting announcements. Television and

radio would be more interestedin items involving, say, outstand-

ing accomplishments by a local IEEEmember. “Find out how to submit

information and how far in advanceit’s needed,” Bower says. Creat-

ing and then maintainingrelationships with local reporters

can keep doors open and makethings easier, he says. Identifying

local technology reporters can alsobe beneficial because they may be

more receptive than general reporters ifyou come to them with a technical story.

Longshore advises building a list oflocal newspapers and radio and tele-

vision stations, and calling to findout general deadlines, whom to

send information to, and if there is a word restriction oncommunity announcements. Tailor your announcements tomeet the specifications.

“It’s advisable to choose one person in your sectionto be your section’s media liaison, so reporters haveone IEEE source to go to,” Longshore continues. Buildrelationships by, for example, personally invitingreporters to local meetings that include technology-based presentations that are of general interest.

Keep putting information out there every chance youget, especially at section meetings. Bower suggests alwayshaving a table to display IEEE handouts and literature.Also have an audience attendance sheet at an event andask for e-mail and postal addresses. Later, you can sendpromotional materials to the people who attended, noti-fying them of upcoming events.

At meetings, designate someone as a greeter to wel-come members and guests. Making a friendly impres-sion can be important in recruiting members. Providingtime to socialize at meetings is also important. You’llmeet potential new members and you can talk up thevalue of your next event.

Download Longshore’s and Upal’s Sections’ Congresspresentations at http://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/sc/2005/SC2005sessions.htm. •

18 THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006

BEST PRACTICES

TFilling Seats: Pointers on Publicity

3p.BestPractice.page18 2/9/06 11:47 AM Page 18

THE INSTITUTE | MARCH 2006 19

MEMBER RECOGNITION

BY LINDSAY ELKINS

FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT ofTCP/IP (the Transmission Control Proto-col/Internet Protocol), the basis for ex-changing information across the Internet,IEEE Fellows Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahnreceived the Presidential Medal of Free-dom, the United States’ highest civilianaward. Cerf and Kahn were honored withthe award at a ceremony on 9 November atthe White House, in Washington, D.C.Other honorees included boxer Muham-mad Ali, singer Aretha Franklin, and econ-omist Alan Greenspan.

Established in 1963, the medal is given tothose who contributed to the security ornational interests of the United States, toworld peace, or to cultural or other signifi-cant public or private endeavors.

Cerf and Kahn designed the basicarchitecture and communication proto-cols of the Internet 30 years ago, and “wehave continued to work for further expan-sion of access to the Internet globally andto explore new applications for this pro-tean medium,” Cerf says.

Today, Cerf is vice president and chiefInternet evangelist for Google, and Kahnis CEO and president of the Corporationfor National Research Initiatives (CNRI),

a nonprofit organization that providesleadership and funding for research anddevelopment of the national informationinfrastructure.

The TCP/IP design was first describedin a paper the two wrote in 1973, whichwas published a year later in the IEEE Trans-actions on Communications. All computers

on the Internet use the Internet Protocol toexchange information, explains Cerf. “Theunderlying hundreds of thousands of net-works use routers to forward Internet pack-

ets from source to desti-nation, routing the trafficwith additional protocolsused to keep track of thedynamic topology of theInternet.”

The protocols weremade standard in 1978,and the Internet offi-cially rolled out on 1 Jan-uary 1983. That sameyear both men ended upat DARPA (the DefenseAdvanced Research Pro-jects Agency), where the

pair managed the Internet program andrelated network research efforts. In 1986Kahn established the CNRI. Cerf joinedhim there, and until 1994 the pair workedon digital libraries and systems for organ-izing, storing, and retrieving digitalobjects, with particular attention to intel-lectual property issues.

The duo also set up the nonprofitInternet Society in 1992. Today the societysupports the standards activity of theInternet Engineering Task Force, whichaims to further spread the use of the Inter-net around the world.

Cerf left DARPA in 1982 to join MCI,serving as its vice president of digital infor-mation services until 1986, when he left tojoin CNRI. He returned to MCI in 1994 tohelp the company enter the Internet servicebusiness. In the subsequent decade MCIbecame a major global Internet serviceprovider. At Google, Cerf is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies to support the development of advancedInternet-based products and services.

“The Internet is one of the greatestinnovations ever launched,” U.S. Presi-dent George W. Bush said as he presentedthe medals to Cerf and Kahn. “And it’s asource of pride to all of us that thisprogress was set in motion by two talentedAmericans. Our economy, our lives, andour world have all been enriched by theimagination and the efforts of Robert Kahnand Vinton Cerf.” •

IN MEMORIAM

BY ALEXANDER GOTTSCHALK

A MIX OF LUCK AND CURIOSITY led tomy decades-long relationship with HalAnger. I was hired in Hal’s lab at the DonnerLaboratory, in Berkeley, Calif., and I was for-tunate enough to have him as my boss—although he was never bossy. When I firstmet him, I had no interest in nuclear med-icine, but his innovative gamma camera,which took better pictures than I was work-ing with, drew me to the field.

Hal was born in Denver on 24 May 1920and grew up in Long Beach, Calif. His fam-ily was involved with one of the first radiostations in Southern California—whichfueled his interest in electronics. While stillin junior college, he used components fromhis physics lab to build one of the first tele-vision receivers in Long Beach.

After graduating from the Universityof California at Berkeley, Hal found ahome at the Donner Laboratory, whichwas part of the Lawrence Radiation Labo-ratory, a facility originally built to explore

the medical and therapeutic use of radia-tion. His early work was with Donnercofounders John Lawrence and CorneliusTobias, who were trying to develop thelab’s 184-inch cyclotron beam for use inradiation therapy. Hal stayed at Donnerfrom 1946 until his retirement in 1982.

In the early 1950s, Hal began working onan instrument that would allow physiciansto observe human organs in action. Thegamma camera, later renamed the Angercamera, produced images of internalprocesses after a patient swallowed a tinyamount of radioactive substances, knownas radiopharmaceuticals, which the cameracould then track. This was the first clinicallysuccessful radioisotope camera and thefoundation for the sophisticated imagingsystems available today. The Anger cameraled to major advances in diagnosing andtreating brain tumors, bone marrow disor-ders, and other life-threatening diseases.

Seen by many as a quiet genius whoshaped the future of nuclear medicine, Haltook a hands-on approach to science that

also led to his invention of the well counter,which is used daily in nuclear medical labsworldwide to measure small quantities ofradioactive substances. He also invented thewhole-body scanner, the positron camera,and the multiplane tomographic scanner.

Nuclear medicine has been pro-foundly affected by Hal Anger. Millionsof patients have benefited from diagnosisand treatment that depended on the

Anger camera and the innovations madepossible by its development.

IEEE Member Alexander Gottschalk, a pro-fessor of radiology at Michigan State Uni-versity Medical Center, was Hal Anger’sfriend and colleague for more than 40 years.Some of this material appeared in the Jour-nal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 46, No. 12,December 2005. •

Fathers of Internet Receive U.S. Medal of Freedom

HAL O. ANGER 85

DIED 31 October 2005

MEMBER GRADE Life Fellow

EDUCATION Bachelor’s degree in

electrical engineering from the

University of California at Berkeley, 1943

FIELD OF INTEREST Nuclear medicine

VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES IEEE,

1945–2005; American College of Nuclear

Physicians, 1992

AWARDS 1964 John Scott Award; 1966

Guggenheim Fellowship; 1971 Gesellschaft

für Medizin; 1975 Modern Medicine Award

for Distinguished Achievement; 1976

Society of Nuclear Medicine’s First West-

ern Regional Award for Distinguished

Contributions to Nuclear Medicine; 1984

IEEE Centennial Medal; 1988 Société

Française de Biophysique Medal; 1991

Georg de Hevesy Memorial Medal; 1992

Honorary Member and Fellow, American

College of Nuclear Physicians

Hal O. Anger,Nuclear-Imaging Pioneer

Vinton Cerf [left] and Robert Kahn [right] received the

Medal of Freedom from U.S. President George W. Bush.

3p.member/obit 2/6/06 3:12 PM Page 19

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