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E-BULLETIN
UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science
June 13, 2007
DEAN'S
LETTER
On June 16, UCLA Engineering will hold its annual commencement
exercises in Pauley Pavilion. We are fortunate to have Pratt &
Whitney Rocketdyne President Jim Maser joining us to deliver our
2007 commencement address.
Throughout his career, Jim has demonstrated engineering
leadership at the highest levels. We are delighted that Jim has
decided to share this special day with our students, their families,
and our School.
Each year, as I prepare to celebrate this day
of recognition and achievement with our talented students, I am
always astonished at how quickly the time flies. Our students
have grown and changed during their years with us, and I have
such great confidence in their abilities. I know that with the
training and education they have received, they will excel in
whatever careers they ultimately choose to pursue after they leave
us.
We expect to award approximately 1,000 degrees
this year, and an estimated 5,600 guests are expected to attend
the School's commencement-related activities and to wish our graduates
well. The School's alumni network continues to grow in scope and
reach with an estimated 25,000-plus members across California,
the nation, and the world. Our 2007 graduates will now be part
of that extended family, and I look forward to hearing about their
future successes, of which I know there will be many!
As we take pride in all we have accomplished this
past year, we are already beginning to look at the year ahead.
As engineers and scientists, it is in our nature to always be
moving forward, investigating, building, researching, and seeking
solutions to the important challenges that face society.
Whether you are a student, an alumnus, a parent,
or a friend, I encourage you all to stay connected to the School,
and to your UCLA family – new and old, together we continue
to shape the future. The best is yet to come.
Sincerely,
Vijay K. Dhir
Dean
FEATURE
STORIES
 Television
Just Got Brighter - UCLA Engineers Are Obsessed with the Next
Generation of LED Panels, and That's Good News for Consumers
Two researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science want to make sure future generations of plasma
TV watchers will see games like the recent NBA Final in the brightest,
most beautiful color possible – for a lot less money. Most
people don't think much about the inner workings of LED's –
or light-emitting diodes – that illuminate today's plasma
TV screens and cell phones, but making these LED's more efficient,
cheaper, and higher quality is the obsession that occupies the
daily thoughts of materials science and engineering professor
Yang Yang and his graduate researcher Jinsong Huang. To read more,
click here.
 New
Approach to Encryption Takes IT Departments One Step Closer to
True Security
Encryption is a tricky business, but one professor at the UCLA
Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has discovered
a new way to encode data that could change the way the Internet
and IT departments work – and he did it all for the love
of elliptical curves. Amit Sahai, an associate professor of computer
science at UCLA Engineering, has used these curves to create a
new approach for encrypting data so that only users whose credentials
satisfy a security policy will be able to decrypt that data. At
the heart of the new technique are elliptic curves. To read more,
click here.
OTHER
NEWS
 Pratt
& Whitney Rocketdyne's Jim Maser to Deliver Commencement Address
June 16
Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne President Jim Maser will deliver
the 2007 commencement address for the UCLA Henry Samueli School
of Engineering and Applied Science on Saturday, June 16. The ceremony
will begin at 12:30 p.m. in Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA Campus.
“Throughout his career, Jim has demonstrated engineering
leadership at the highest levels,” said Dean Vijay K. Dhir.
“We are delighted and honored to have Jim as our 2007 UCLA
Engineering.” To read more, click
here.
MEDIA
WATCH: UCLA ENGINEERING NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Photonics
Television
Just Got Brighter: UCLA Engineers Are Obsessed With the Next Generation
of LEDs
Two researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science want to make sure future generations of plasma
TV watchers will see games like the upcoming NBA Finals in the
brightest, most beautiful color possible — for a lot less
money. Most people don't think much about the inner workings of
LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, which illuminate today's plasma
TV screens and cell phones, but making these LEDs more efficient,
cheaper and higher quality is the obsession that occupies the
daily thoughts of materials science and engineering professor
Yang Yang and his graduate researcher Jinsong Huang. Yang and
Huang have recently achieved the highest lumens per watt ever
recorded for a red phosphorescent LED using a new combination
of plastic, or polymer, infused liquid — and they did it
at half the current cost.
Exduco.net (Italy)
New Research
Offers Baby Boomers Round-the-Clock Care,With a Twist
As an estimated 78.2 million baby boomers nationwide reach their
later years, researchers are continually looking for ways to improve
their quality of life. A professor at the UCLA Henry Samueli School
of Engineering and Applied Science hopes his recent research —
using a small wireless computer and tiny sensors connected to
the Internet — will help older patients with mobility issues
or loss of sensation avoid unnecessary and costly trips to the
doctor or therapist while improving their ailments in record time.
UCLA Today
Networked
Cars Share Data Via Internet on Wheels
In the frenzied aftermath of Sept. 11 and hurricane-ravaged New
Orleans, communication lifelines were suddenly cut off completely
for emergency personnel when infrastructure was destroyed. That's
one of the primary reasons why public agencies such as the California
Department of Transportation are paying close attention to a project
led by Computer Science Professor Mario Gerla at the UCLA Henry
Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.
ZDnet.com
On Re-Inventing
The Internet
Although it has taken nearly four decades to get this far in building
the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's
blessing want to scrap it and start over. The idea may seem unthinkable,
even absurd, but many contend that a - clean slate - approach
is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other
challenges that have cropped up since UCLA computer science professor
emeritus Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange
of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.
Engineering News Record
Good
News for Tall, Concrete Cores
Surprisingly positive results of performance tests on simplified,
reinforced concrete link beams - the most congested part of a
shear wall core - have opened the door to more-constructible towers
in seismic zones. But engineers suggest the research will have
an even greater impact on seismic design of tall buildings, for
it offers proof that performance-based engineering can provide
better quality than "prescriptive" design. John Wallace,
director of UCLA Engineering's Structural/Earthquake Engineering
Research Laboratory and the engineer performing the tests, says
the results, even after only three of eight tests, are already
"providing more comfort to design engineers."
Daily Bruin
UCLA
Researchers Develop Training Tool
UCLA researchers have created a new instrument that can be used
as a surgical teaching tool and can also be used by expert doctors
to direct medical procedures at remote locations. Researchers
at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science,
in collaboration with UCLA’s Center for Advanced Surgical
and Interventional Technology (CASIT), have developed a guided
laparoscopic instrument that can be used by expert laparoscopic
surgeons to guide novice surgeons at a different location.
Yahoo! News (India)
Boffins
Find Ways to 'Harvest' Electrons to Make Optoelectronic Devices
More Efficient
A University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) research team has
found a way to make optoelectronic devices more efficient by having
them "harvest" electrons to generate current instead
of heat. "Performing basic optical operations in silicon,
such as amplifying and modulating light, converting one wavelength
to another and lasing, require an intense beam of light. This
light interacts with silicon in a non-linear way, which is necessary
for useful optical effects," said Bahram Jalali, head of
UCLA's optoelectronics lab.
Science Daily
Television
Just Got Brighter: UCLA Engineers Are Obsessed With the Next Generation
of LEDs
Two researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science want to make sure future generations of plasma
TV watchers will see games like the upcoming NBA Finals in the
brightest, most beautiful color possible — for a lot less
money.
Directions Magazine
UCLA's
Virtual Pioneers: Remapping Los Angeles
A bold new experiment in community-based computing is currently
underway in downtown Los Angeles. The project, known as Remapping
LA, is being spearheaded by a group of digital innovators from
UCLA's Center for Research in Engineering, Media and Performance
(REMAP), a collaboration between the UCLA School of Theater, Film
and Television and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering
and Applied Science.
Nanotechnology News
UCLA
Scientists Design New Super-Hard Material
Ultra-hard materials are used for everything from drills that
bore for oil and build new roads to scratch-resistant coatings
for precision instruments and the face of your watch. Jenn-Ming
Yang, professor of materials science and engineering and Richard
B. Kaner, professor of inorganic chemistry and materials science
and engineering are now reporting a promising new approach to
designing super-hard materials, which are very difficult to scratch
or crack.
San Jose Mercury News [News clip
unavailable]
Hutchison: Awards Unite Technology, Woman's Touch at Right
Time
Computer science professor Deborah Estrin featured.
Daily Bruin
Researchers
Work to Light Up Our Lives
Two UCLA researchers are working to brighten the future of television
and cell phone screens. Materials science and engineering professor
Yang Yang and his graduate researcher Jinsong Huang are working
to make more efficient LEDs, or light-emitting diodes.LEDs are
used to illuminate technological items including TVs and cell
phone display screens. The researchers are using polymer, a kind
of plastic, to improve the LEDs.
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