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E-BULLETIN
UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
January 9, 2008
DEAN'S
LETTER
I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday and are
ready for a new year filled with promise and excitement.
Undoubtedly, energy issues will be at the forefront
in 2008, just as they have been in the recent past. As the demand
for fossil fuels continues to grow, so does the demand to replace
them with new energy sources that are renewable and are cleaner
for the environment. There is still so much to be done and a sea
change in energy use will only happen with the forward-thinking
efforts of academia, governments, industry, consumers and many
other stakeholders.
Here at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science, advanced energy technology research is an
important thrust area, in which many faculty are active in. We
are proud that they have made important contributions in a wide
spectrum of renewable and cleaner energy technologies. And industry
has noticed our work.
Just this month, a team led by chemical and biomolecular
engineering professor James Liao had their work, on a novel method
of producing biofuels from E. coli bacteria, published in Nature.
This promising research has been licensed by Gevo, Inc., a biofuels
company based in Pasadena, California.
In fact, UCLA Engineering has a proud tradition
of being on the forefront of green energy technology development.
In 1972 a UCLA team won a low-emissions automobile competition
with a car that was modified to run on hydrogen. This technology
was not embraced at the time, but in recent years, there has been
a big push to make hydrogen-powered vehicles a reality.
Last month, materials science and engineering
professor Vidvuds Ozolins collobrated with researchers from Ford
Motor Corporation on the design of a hydrogen storage system with
fast release rates.
These are only two of the most recent examples
of where the school is addressing the critical issue of future
energy needs. We have faculty working on advances in solar power,
fission, fusion and other technologies that will help provide
much-needed energy without the same harmful environmental impact
that fossil fuels have.
As we continue our research in these areas, we
hope our contributions will be part of the solution to a sustainable,
greener and brighter future.
Sincerely,
Vijay K. Dhir
Dean
FEATURE
STORIES
UCLA Engineering researchers develop method for production
of more efficient biofuels
Researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and
Applied Science have developed a new method for producing next-generation
biofuels by genetically modifying Escherichia coli bacteria to
be an efficient biofuel synthesizer. The method could lead to
mass production of these biofuels. The strategy, developed by
UCLA professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering James
Liao, postdoctoral fellow Shota Atsumi and visiting professor
Taizo Hanai, appears in the Jan. 3 issue of the journal Nature.
To read more, click
here.
OTHER NEWS
UCLA scientists working to create smaller,
faster integrated circuits: Major advances expected to lead to
improved chips in cell phones, computers
Integrated circuits are the "brain"
in computers, cell phones, DVD players, iPhones, personal digital
assistants, automobiles' navigation systems and anti-lock brakes,
and many other electronic devices. A
team of UCLA scientists has now demonstrated substantial improvements
in integrated circuits, achieved not by costly improvements in
manufacturing but by improved computer-aided design software based
on better mathematical algorithms.
"We can get circuits designed with 30 percent
less wire length using improved optimization than what we had
demonstrated three years ago, based on circuits that were samples
from industry," said Jason Cong, UCLA professor and chair
of computer science. "We believe that when you apply these
methods to current industry circuits, you will see similar gains.
Industry says even 5 percent is very significant.
"We are showing there is another way to make
major improvements, with better design and better architecture,"
added Cong, who has collaborated for nearly a decade with Tony
Chan, UCLA professor of mathematics and the National Science Foundation's
assistant director for mathematics and physical sciences.
MEDIA
WATCH: UCLA ENGINEERING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Technology Review
Virtual
Extras: Giving each member of a digital crowd its own personality
could make animated mob scenes more realistic
The behavior of computer-generated crowds in movies
and video games could soon appear much more realistic, thanks
to new software that gives each character a complex personality
of its own. The software has been demonstrated in a simulation
of Pennsylvania Station, in New York City, depicting more than
1,000 commuters, law-enforcement officers, entertainers, and tourists
going about their business. Each individual demonstrates complex,
rational behaviors that collectively create a much more lifelike
representation of human activity, says Demetri Terzopoulos,
a professor of computer science at the University of California,
Los Angeles.
National Public Radio
Scientists
Seek Cause of Mysterious 'Rogue' Waves
All Things Considered, December 15, 2007 · "Rogue
waves" are monsters of the open ocean — the powerful
"walls of water" can destroy even large ships. Satellite
measurements have found them to be up to 100 feet tall. So far,
scientists have disagreed about what causes the waves, but researchers
at UCLA think that they may have found a clue.
MSNBC
Scientists shed
light on monster sea waves: Research offers hope of predicting
where freak occurrences will appear
Ocean waves as tall as an eight-story building, once dismissed
as maritime folklore, can be studied using waves of light, offering
hope of predicting where these monsters may appear, U.S. researchers
said on Wednesday.
CALENDAR
January 28
Electrial
Engineering Department Annual Research Review
8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Engineering IV building
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