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HEADLINES – UCLA Samueli In The News 2010

December

The Los Angeles Times
Apple names former Northrop CEO Ron Sugar to board
Apple Inc. announced in November that former Northrop Grumman Corp. Chief Executive Officer Ronald D. Sugar was named to its board of directors. Sugar holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from UCLA Engineering and was the school’s Alumnus of the Year in 1996.

National Geographic
New Life-Saving Medical Imaging Tool: The Mobile Phone
The magazine interviews eletrical engineering assistant professor Aydogan Ozcan, a National Geographic Emerging Explorer, about his work with the mobile phone as a medical technology, and how the growing platform’s many new applications are outgrowing simple communication.

November

Technology Review
Improving Phones through Surveillance
Apps that track how people use their phones could help make the devices more efficient. UCLA doctoral student Hossein Falaki, of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, is developing an app for that.

Daily Bruin
UCLA researchers work to integrate electric vehicles into L.A. traffic
An electric vehicle workshop on Friday in Covel Commons highlighted UCLA’s Electric Vehicle Integration research project. The project, created by UCLA’s Smart Grid Energy Research Center, uses advanced technology developed at UCLA to manage electric vehicle energy storage and consumption.

Los Angeles Times
UCLA researchers developing batteries the size of a grain of salt
UCLA chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Jane P. Chang is leading research to develop a tiny version of lithium-ion batteries. The technology could one day be used to power miniature electronic devices.The news was also carried in India’s Economic Times.

RedOrbit
Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awardees Announced
RedOrbit reported that Popular Mechanics magazine has given its one of its 2010 Breakthrough Awards to Aydogan Ozcan, for his development of a cell phone–based, lens-free microscope that can analyze blood, saliva and other fluid samples.

Examiner.com
UCLA to test “smart” electric vehicle integration
The Smart Grid Energy Research Center (SMERC) has been developing the WINSmartGrid™ platform in hopes of creating a scalable and robust architecture utilizing wireless technologies which will allow smart vehicle and energy storage and consumption management for vehicles in home or in the office.

October

BBC News
Smart vision for mobile phones in the developing world
In California, Aydogan Ozcan, assistant professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is working on a mobile replacement for the microscope.he is building the Cellophone, a handset modification that allows it to detect microbes and bacteria in fluid samples.

Daily Bruin
School gets millions for nanotechnology building
By spring 2014, engineering students and researchers will have a new home to study advanced energy conservation technologies for microelectronics and nanotechnology at UCLA.

Xinhua News Agency
U.S. researchers develop lens-free microscope 
Researchers at University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) announced on Saturday that they have perfected an electron microscope that does not use a glass lens. The lens-free microscope has immediate applications for veterinarians measuring the fertility of bulls or other stock animals, the school said.

Daily Bruin
UCLA to introduce Mobilize, a computer science teaching tool, to L.A. high schools
With a $12.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, UCLA will introduce a new computer science teaching tool aimed at L.A. area high schools next fall.

Daily Bruin
UCLA Professor Eric Hoek’s device helps clean oil spill
Immediately after the Gulf oil spill in April, UCLA Professor Eric Hoek flew to the affected area, sailed out on a barge boat, and deployed centrifugal separators into the water. The story was also featured on a Infox.Ru, a Russian language news site. To view it, click here.

September

Scientific American
Re-thinking the Internet with security and mobility in mind
The National Science Foundation’s Future Internet Architecture (FIA) research projects  are expected to re-think the network from the ground up, taking into account emerging security concerns, the demand for greater bandwidth and the growth of mobile devices. An FIA project headed by Lixia Zhang, a computer science professor at UCLA, seeks to create a more efficient Internet through the distribution of data.

Daily Bruin
Winging it: UCLA students build and enter gigantic flying Bruin in Red Bull competition
On Aug. 21, UCLA mechanical engineering student Anthony Gambardella and his UCLA friends competed in front of about 105,000 spectators at Red Bull Flugtag in Long Beach’s Rainbow Harbor.

August

Los Angeles Times
Video games are serious business for Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime
Morhaime ’90, who started Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. with fellow UCLA Engineering alumni Allen Adham ’90 and Frank Pearce ’90, discusses the company’s rise from small office to video game industry giant and best-selling maker of the World of Warcraft and Star Craft video game series.

Smithsonian Magazine
Vinton Cerf on Where the Internet Will Take Us 
As part of the magazine’s 40th anniversary, UCLA Engineering alumnus Vinton Cerf MS ’70, PhD ’72, who is Google’s “Chief Internet Evangelist” talks about the direction of online connectivity and communication for the next 40 years. The feature also includes a video interview with Cerf.

US News & World Report
Customized Computing for Health Care
Researchers at UCLA’s Center for Domain Specific Computing  are designing new targeted types of computer software and hardware to develop a health care computing prototype that could enable physicians to use computers in speedier, cost-efficient and much more focused ways. the center’s director, professor Jason Cong, is featured.

Information Week
Scientists Reveal Location Based Cryptography
A group led by University of California, Los Angeles computer scientists say they have proved that cryptography based solely on physical location is now possible, thanks to quantum mechanics.

Santa Barbara Independent
Kevin Costner Plays Heroic Role in Gulf Disaster
The article profiles the actor/director’s efforts to help with the cleanup of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and highlights the work of Eric Hoek, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, who joined with Costner’s nonprofit to develop a cutting-edge oil-treatment technology.

PhysOrg.com
Nanomaterials poised for big impact in construction
The article discusses a survey of more than 140 scientific papers on the potential health and environmental risks during the lifecycle of  nanomaterials used in the construction industry. Civil and environmental engineering assistant professor Shaily Mahendra is one of the survey’s authors.

July

American Physical Society Physics News
Fluid Dynamics Tackles the Oil Spill
Physicists and engineers from across the country who specialize in fluid flows have weighed in on how much oil has been flowing out of the damaged pipe a mile beneath the ocean’s surface. Mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Pirouz Kavehpour is quoted.

KNBC-TV
Stumping Electronic Pickpockets
Rajit Gadh, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, was interviewed last week in a segment about thieves stealing credit-card information using radio waves and the types of security precautions vendors and consumers can take.

June

Scientific American
New evidence that fMRI experiments are valid measure of neuron activity
A team of researchers including Jin Hyung Lee, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, show that the changes in blood flow in the brain shown in functional Magnetic Resnonace Imaging, or fMRI, are valid for neuron activity in that area.

The Daily Bruin
SuperMileage Vehicle team engineers with green ambitions
The UCLA team finished its March competition in Houston, Texas, with an efficiency of 600 miles per gallon and hopes to reach more than 1,000 miles per gallon in the June 10-11 SAE International’s Supermileage competition in Marshall, Mich.

Big Think
The Internet Utters its First Word (video)
Interview with computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock. The centerfold of a Superman comic book inspired the inventor who sent the first-ever Internet message.

Technology Review
Surveillance Software Knows What a Camera Sees
A prototype computer vision system can generate a live text description of what’s happening in a feed from a surveillance camera. Although not yet ready for commercial use, the system demonstrates how software could make it easier to skim or search through video or image collections. Also featured in Fast Company.

TMCnet
Review of UCLA WINMEC Smart Grid Forum
A management consultant reviewed the recent Smart Grid Forum, held at UCLA last month, for a communications and technology portal.

May

ESPN the Magazine
To Each His Own: No Bond in Sports is Stronger than the One between an NHL Player and his Stick**subscription required for full web access**
The March 22 issue of ESPN the Magazine includes a story on the evolution of hockey sticks, from wood to aerospace-grade carbon fiber. The article mentions UCLA Engineering alumnus and CEO of Easton-Bell Sports James L. Easton’s $2 million donation to the school for research into advanced sports equipment materials.

Daily Bruin
Bruins design and build a race car from scratch
On May 19, the UCLA Society of Automotive Engineers’ dedication in building a race car from scratch will finally pay off as they head to the race track to compete in the annual Baja SAE race.

Daily Bruin
UCLA team to compete in 2010 National Concrete Canoe Competition
A floating, concrete canoe — it seems like a bit of an oxymoron. But for UCLA and the other 21 universities competing at the 2010 National Concrete Canoe Competition, this is just another project to tackle.

KPCC
LAX Theme Building shakes as UCLA engineers test for quakes
The Theme Building in the middle of Los Angeles International Airport shook for a few moments Tuesday as engineers tested the space-age structure’s earthquake readiness. The testing was also featured in: The Daily Breeze; NBC-4; and the Daily Bruin.

The Atlantic
Among Dorms, a hidden hunger
Abdallah Jadallah, a UCLA civil engineering major, is among several college students featured who have done work to address hunger among college students.

April

Popular Science
Vest uses accelerometers and balloons to improve wearer’s balance
UCLA’s Center for Advanced Surgical and Interventional Technology has unveiled an electronic vest that may help rehab patients regain their balance. The vest was also featured in IEEE Spectrum.

The Washington Post
Not a hole lot you can do to keep roadways smooth
The article covers the many problems caused by potholes on the nation’s roadways and mentions materials science and engineering professor and chair Jenn-Ming Yang’s project to develop tougher and longer-lasting repair materials.

March

The Daily Bruin
Environment 185 class uses smart phones to research green issues on campus
Four current research projects for the class Environment 185 incorporate the UCLA Center for Embedded Network Sensing’s technology for gathering information through smart phone features like cameras and GPS.

February

New York Times
Smart Dust? Not Quite, but We’re Getting There
The recent advances in stand-alone sensors may be impressive, but some researchers are pursuing a different path.

Technology Review
The Physics ArXiv Blog: To Understand Congress, just watch the Sandpile
The behavior of Congress can be modeled by the same process that causes avalanches in sandpiles

January

Los Angeles Times
Technology becomes friendlier to older generations
A growing array of products and services are made with seniors’ needs and preferences in mind.

Channel One News
Then and Now: The Internet (video)
The television network aimed at teenagers features a story on the 40th anniversary of the Internet

Santa Barbara Independent
Cell Phone App helps Combat Weeds
The university’s Center for Embedded Network Sensing (CENS) and the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area developed a cell phone app to locate invasive plant species within national parks.

News