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COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF

ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER

ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF

ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER

ENGINEERING

NIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

ECE NEWSECE NEWS

onvincing people to wake up in the

morning and play a game on a sandy

beach with palm trees seems like a

marketable idea, especially i the game helps

people sleep more eectively and stay alertthroughout the day.

Thats exactly what inventor Justin Beck

(BS 09) hopes is true, and the judges at the

2009 Innovation Day competition thought he

was on to something. In February, Beck, along

with his partner Daniel Gartenberg, a psychology

and neuroscience student, won $10,000 at

the 15th anniversary o the Schoos Prize or

Creativity, an annual UW-Madison undergraduate

invention competition that rewards innovative

and marketable ideas.

Their winning idea, called Proactive Sleep,

is a sotware application or the iPhone and theiPod touch that serves as a sophisticated alarm

clock, waking users during the light sleep phase

o their cycle. In the morning, users play an easy

gamewhich currently is depicted on a

beach scenethat tests alertness.

The sotware then automatically

recongures as it learns the users

unique sleep cycle, ultimately elimi-

nating morning grogginess and

helping users stay more alert

all day. Beck and Gartenberg

plan to put Proactive Sleep

on the market in the nextew months via the Apple

application store.

Proactive Sleep

is only one o

many inventions

Beck created while

he was a student at UW-

Madison. He participated in

Innovation Day three times

(Continued on page 5)

YEAR IN REV

2008-200

C

A

Innovation Day winnerInnovation Day winnergraduatesafter four years of success

www.ng.wsc./cwww.ng.wsc./c

new wind energy curriculum will be developed by several UW-Madison engineering and

atmospheric and oceanic sciences aculty and sta thanks to a nearly $400,000 grant

rom the U.S. Department o Energy. Principal investigators include Associate Proessors

Giri Venkataramanan and Bernie Lesieutre, Proessor Tom Jahns, and Atmospheric and Oceanic

Sciences Assistant Proessor Ankur Desai.

The curriculum will include a series o undergraduate and graduate-level courses oered on campus

and online that center on wind energy and power engineering. Four power engineering courses will

be available, including Wind Turbine Electric Generators and Controls, Power Electronic Converters

for Wind Turbines, Electric Utility Wind Power Integrationand Small Wind Turbine Design.

Students who take these courses and complete an internship at a utility or energy-related

company will be eligible or a new certicate program in wind energy. Several wind-energy policy

and economics electives will be oered through other departments on campus. A periodic seminar

series addressing wind energy integration and an annual proessional conerence rom theWisconsin Public Utility Institute will also be developed rom the DOE grant.

The DOE grant is due in part to the support o Vestas, the worlds leading producer o wind

power technology, which recently entered into a strategic partnership with the College o Engineering

that promises to propel wind energy research, provide student learning opportunities and give the

company a long-term presence in Madison.

Wind energy is a growing source o new power generation in the world and the technology

has even greater untapped potential, says Jahns, who directs the Wisconsin Power Electronics

Research Center and helped establish the partnership. By teaming with an industry leader like

Vestas, our research environment will thrive and Wisconsin will see expanded opportunities in

wind energy and other renewable energy options.

Vsts ptnshp

yields DOE grant for wind energycurriculum

(Continued on page 6)

Giri Venkataramaand Tom Jahns inwind tunnel. Thewill be a key testacility or wind-eprojects.

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ECE NEWS2

t is my great pleasure to introduce

mysel as the new ECE department

chair. I am joined by Proessor

, who will serve as the vice chair

or operations. Some o you know me and I

would sincerely appreciate hearing rom you

with updates on how you are doing. Others I

have not had the pleasure to meet; however,

I would love or you to introduce yourselves

by E-mail, phone or a drop-in visit. I there

is any way in which I can be o assistance,

please do not hesitate to contact me.

On behal o the entire ECE amily, I wish

to express deep gratitude to Proessors

and

, department chair and co-chair rom2005-2009. With their outstanding leader-

ship and dedicated service, the department

enters the next decade with many strengths

and opportunities upon which to build. I eel

extremely ortunate to have inherited the role

o chair rom their successul stewardship.It is no secret that ECE

and higher education

in general are

aected by the

same challenges

(economic,environmental and

inrastructural) that are

acing individuals, the nation

and the globe. I see these challenges as a

stimulus to reexamine many aspects o the

department and seek improvements in how

we aect learning, deliver support services

and acilitate research.

While new approaches will address using

nancial resources more eciently, our

principal priority will remain on maintaining

and improving the quality o student learningand research impact. In the coming year, we

will conduct an intensive strategic planning

initiative that will examine and revise our

organizational structure, curriculum,

instructional approaches and external

communication. For example, a recent up-

date to our departments strategic ve-year

plan organizes our research prole emphases

into the timely categories o energy,

inormation and health. These priorities

Message froM the Chair

refect the importance o electrical and

computer engineering in nding solutions

to grand societal challenges in these areas.

We are also actively contributing to the

College o Engineering 2010 and BeyondInitiative to transorm engineering education

to meet the needs and realities o the uture.

Examples o successul course innovations

led by ECE aculty under this initiative

include Introduction to Societys Engineering

Grand Challengesand a new Engineering

or Energy Sustainability

certicate program.

One importantarea o emphasis

during the next

several years willbe to develop and

nurture our community

o alumni and supportive

riends and amily, both individual and

corporate. Their collective expertise, diverse,

successul career experience, and memories

o UW-Madison and ECE represent a crucial

pool o knowledge and proessional supportresources that we wish to more ully engage

to ensure the success o our uture students,

aculty and sta.

By recognizing the importance odeveloping our resources to maintain our

quality, we are aligning our department with

the colleges plan to endow the department

chair position. This will establish a fexible

pool o resources to support priority

investments in aculty recruitment start-up

packages, teaching ellows, departmental

colloquia with publicly available video

archives, and unds to incubate new explor-

atory initiatives in teaching and research.Duane H. & Dorothy M. Bluemke Professor

John H. Booske, ChairECE Department

IA

UW-Madison computer scienti

elected to national academy

We Would like

to hear fromyou!

As state budgets struggle with increasing

public obligations and declining revenues, we

will increasingly rely on the philanthropy o

those who have a symbiotic relationship with

us. This will be critical to sustain and improve

the exceptional learning and research that

we are committed to providing as our aculty

and students continue to achieve exceptionaloutcomes in the lab and the classroom.

I eel ortunate to have been a member o

an outstanding and deservedly high-ranked

department or almost 20 years, and I look

orward to serving the colleagues, students,

supportive alumni and industrial partners o

ECE as we set sail to an exciting uture.

John Booske, Chair

2416 Engineering Hall1415 Engineering Drive

Madison, WI 53706

Phone: 608/262-3840

Fax: 608/262-1267

E-mail: ecechair@engr.wisc.edu

Web:www.engr.wisc.edu/ece

UW-Madison proessor is amo

65 engineers and nine oreign

associates elected

to the National Academy o

Engineering (NAE) in 2009.

John P. Morgridge Proessor

and E. David Cronon Proessor

has

been ranked among the most

distinguished engineers in the

nation, peer-elected or their exceptional

contributions to engineering research,

practice or education.

Sohi joined the UW-Madison aculty in

1985 and holds appointments in both ECE

and the computer sciences department,

which he chaired rom 2004 to 2008. His

research on high-perormance computersystem design led to papers and patents

that have infuenced both research and

commercial microprocessors. The NAE

election honors his contributions to the

design o high-perormance, super-scalar

computer architectures.

I am proud to be a aculty member at

Wisconsin, whose environment allowed

me to carry out the work or which this

recognition is being given, Sohi says.

Read more about Sohis work at:

.

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Airports need regular area surveys to map out possible

obstructions that could aect construction, tree maintenance

or runway approach patterns. A promising alternative to

expensive physical surveying is airborne light detection and ranging (lidar).

Christopher Parrish, a civil and environmental engineering graduate

student, is studying lidar, and he sought advice rom ECE McFarland-

Bascom Proessor Rob Nowak. Together, Nowak and Parrish developed

a new workfow or processing data rom waveorm lidar by taking into

account models or both distortion and signal characteristics.

The approach resulted in a robust, reliable obstruction mapping

method that addresses previous challenges while simpliying workfow.

Parrish applied the new methods to lidar signals collected around the

Madison area with great success, and the two

published their results in the May 2009 issue

o the Journal of Surveying Engineering.

This is a huge advance, says Nowak.

It totally revolutionizes how well they areable to do these automatic airborne surveys

o airports. Parrish estimates a 46-percent

decrease in total obstruction survey completion

time and a 38-percent decrease in human

labor time, according to the most recent

National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

National Geodetic Survey (NGS) lidar obstruction survey.

Lidar works similarly to radar but uses laser light as its signal. As a

surveying plane fies over an area ocials want to map, it sends out a

laser pulse. Sensors on the plane detect the signal as the laser refects

o the suraces it encounters. Then, engineers collect data rom all the

beams that scanned a particular point in space and map all the detected

refections in a scatterplot. Ocials can use the resulting point cloudsto determine the shape, size and location o obstructions.

(From let): Photos, discrete lidar and waveorm lidar point-clouds o common airport obstructionsa tree(top) and tower(bottom)showing the achievable point density increase usingull-waveorm data.

Rob Nowak

ssistant Proessor Stark C. Draper

has received a prestigious 2009

Faculty Early Career Development

Award (CAREER). CAREER awards recognize

aculty members who are at the beginning o

their academic careers and have developed

creative projects that eectively integrateadvanced research and education.

Draper, who joined the UW-Madison aculty

in all 2007, is researching how to rethink the

undamental architectures o digital commu-

nications to improve the delivery o streaming

data. The long-term potential o his work

could be improved digital communications

service and broader availability or lower cost.

The project will be unded by the American

Recovery and Reinvestment Act o 2009.

A

New airport survey method takes fight

NGS has researched lidar or the past decade. Traditionally, NGS

has used discrete data, ocusing on only the initial return o each

laser pulse, or the ront edge o the return signal. Now, systems

can digitally acquire and save the entire laser return, a process

known as waveorm lidar, which results in scatterplots with an

average o 252 percent more data points than traditional methods.

Traditional methods ocus on what happened to the signal and

the process that distorts it, but they ignore the physical characteristics

o the signal itsel, says Nowak. The new obstruction mapping

method could be applied to a variety o signals that are distorted,

incomplete or noisy. One example is MRI, which Nowak says is a

great example o how the new method could make a big dierencebeyond airports.

dp wins Career wfo stming mi chitctu, sign n fbck

The central technical question Draper will

address is how eedback should be used to

transmit delay-sensitive data in real-world systems

that are aced with resource-constrained and noisy

eedback. The project will address new scenarios

(e.g., wireless ading, multiuser networks, inter-

action with queuing) to develop architecturalinsights, appropriate classes o error correcting

codes, and improved network protocols.

The research will be incorporated into a

variety o UW-Madison courses addressing

coding and inormation theory, as well as the

reshman undergraduate course Introduction

to Societys Engineering Grand Challenges.

Draper and his team also work with the UW

Engineering Summer Program to promote

STEM elds to high-school students.

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ECE NEWS4

Adam Hughes(right)with University o Monterrey, Mexico, student Cesar Suarez(left)andECE senior Nate Kautzer(center)pictured with a vertical axis turbine.

(Continued from front page)faCULtY NeWsstUDeNt NeWs

Adam Hughes is guided by the wind,

and his interest in renewable energy

has taken him to New Zealand,

the Bahamas and a basement laboratory in

Engineering Hall.

The ECE senior is currently at work on an

independent study project on vertical axis

wind turbines under Associate Proessor Giri

Venkataramanan and the Wisconsin Electric

Machines and Power Electronics Consortium.

Hughes is researching and testing optimal

designs or inexpensive, low-power wind

turbines that can be installed in rural areas

o developing countries.

His project is a culmination o our years

o experience with renewable energy

technologies and rural communities.

I you nd something you love, you have

to take the initiative to

nd opportunities and

learn about what youenjoy, he says. I have

maximized my opportu-

nities in order to learn

as much as I can within my eld.

Hughes, a Madison, Wisconsin, native,

began his engineering education ocused

on computers. He credits the University o

Wisconsin Hooers Club with his transition

to renewable energyhe joined the outdoor

group as a reshman and was infuenced by

other members with strong environmentalist

belies. To learn more about how engineering

could benet the environment, Hughes joinedthe Future Energy Challenge competition. He

also became an active member o Engineers

Without Borders and Business Action or

Sustainable Enterprise, where he worked on

biodiesel engineering and advocacy projects.

It was great experience, he says o his

involvement with the student organizations,

especially Future Energy Challenge. I had a

lot o exposure to renewable energy system

design as a whole.

In all 2006, Hughes studied abroad in

New Zealand, where he joined the organization

World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms,

which pairs volunteers with armers who need

help with sustainable agriculture and design

projects. Hughes branched out rom his

biodiesel background and worked on a small

hydroelectric power project.

His experience working with local commu-

nity members to implement power systems

was useul when Hughes returned rom New

Zealand and took a co-op with Madison Gas

and Electric upgrading rural power systems.

The part I enjoyed most was being able to

travel to the countryside, meet Wisconsins

local armers and work together with them

to ensure sae and reliable access to electricity

on their land, he says.

Ater his co-op, Hughes traveled again

to work on renewable energy technologies.

He joined Cape Systems Limited, an

environmental advocacy and consulting

rm aliated with the Island School in theBahamas. Hughes was part o solar and

wind energy systems or residential and

small commercial clients and helped maintain

and upgrade turbines or the school.

When Hughes returned to UW-Madison

in all 2008, he looked or opportunities to

conduct an independent study project in

renewable energies. He met Venkataramanan,

who put him to work on the vertical axis

project in spring 2009.

The project began when an entrepreneur in

Kenya connected with Madison-based product

development company Design Concepts to

create low-cost, low-power turbines or

terrain with unsteady air fow less than ideal

or traditional wind turbines. Design Concepts

contacted Venkataramanan, who then involved

Hughes in the project.

Traditional turbines, like the giant ones in

western and southern United States, have

a horizontal axis o rotation that is parallel

with the ground. When the direction o the

wind changes, the whole turbine turns, or

Independent study and travelpower a passion for renewable energy

yaws, to ace into the wind. Alternatively,

vertical axis turbines, which have vertical

rotor shats and thereore a perpendicular

axis o rotation, can collect wind rom any

direction without turning. This means the

vertical turbines can be implemented in a

wider variety o terrains and dont waste

energy on yawing.

Our project is aimed at people who dont

have electricity at all and would like a ewlights in their home or want to charge a cell

phone, Hughes says. It really needs to be

aordable and simple to construct.

Ater his independent

study project, Hughes

will ocus on

wrapping up his

undergraduate

education and

graduate in

December

2009. He

is currently

exploring both

graduate school

and employment

options in renew-

able energy.

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as an undergraduate, which made his senior

year victory all the more special. During hissophomore year, Beck and our other students

ounded UW Innovators, an organization that

pools talents to help inventors develop their

ideas. He was also an exhibitor at Engineering

EXPO 2007 and 2009.

Beck worked as an intern or Google,

Microsot, Mechantronics and Cuna Mutual

Group, which gave him the condence to ound

his own sotware company, PerBlue. PerBlue

is working on a variety o projects, including a

Congts to 2009 cipints of pstigious Ging ws

video game called Parallel Kingdom, and more

than 42,000 user accounts or the game have

already been opened.Becks commitment to innovation and

entrepreneurship is exactly the kind o spirit

Richard Schoos (BSChE 53), the ounder and

sponsor o the Schoos Prize, hopes Innovation

Day attracts. I youre creative and enjoy what

youre doing, you dont have to worry about

nances because they seem to roll in, says

Schoos. Well have couple o millionaires

assuming Proactive Sleep is approved by

Apple or sale in the application store.

On April 14, 2009, nearly 50 UW-Madison engineering aculty, sta, students, riends

and amily members gathered or a banquet at the University o Wisconsin Foundation.

A celebration o recipients, the

event honored nine electrical and computer engineering students who already are makingmeaningul contributions in their eld. Sponsored by The Grainger Foundation, the awards

recognize students or their academic success in the eld o power engineering. Pictured

(back row, from left): College o Engineering Dean Paul Peercy, Marcus Hammonds,

Robert Sandy, Andrew Redon, Adam Anders and Jonathan Lee; (front row)Adam Hughes,

Zeb Breuckman, Brenton Smith and Jerey Gobeli.

he past year has

been a dynamic

one or Associate

Proessor Zhenqiang (Jack) Ma.

In December, Ma was among

67 researchers honored with aPresidential Early Career Awards

or Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) at a

White House ceremony.

The annual PECASE awards honor the

most promising researchers in the United

States based on nominations by nine ederal

departments and agencies. Ma, nominated

by the Department o Deense or his leading-

edge fexible electronics research, will receive

$1 million over ve years to continue his

work with nanomembrane-based fexible

electronics, with emphasis on nanophotonic

devices that detect or emit light.

In January, Ma and colleagues Max Lagally,

a proessor in Materials Science & Engineering,

and University o Michigan Proessor Pallab

Bhattacharya were eatured on the cover o

Applied Physics Letters. The trio has developed

a fexible light-sensitive material that could

revolutionize photography and other imaging

technologies. The group created curved

photodetectors with specially abricated

nanomembranesextremely thin, fexible

sheets o germanium, a very light-sensitive

material oten used in high-end imagingsensors. Researchers then can apply the

nanomembranes to any polymer substrate,

such as a thin, fexible piece o plastic. The

group demonstrated photodetectors curved in

one direction, but Ma hopes next to develop

hemispherical sensors.

Most recently, Ma has received a three-

year, $402,595 grant rom the Oce o Naval

Research to conduct undamental research

on graphene. Graphene, containing single

layer o carbon atoms, is a new type o

high-mobility material with promise or uture

high-speed nanoelectronics.However, the major obstacle to using

graphene in electronics applications is that it

lacks a bandgap. Current bandgap-opening

methods dramatically reduce the mobility,

meaning any devices made rom such

graphene would be slower.

Ma will use this grant to investigate a

novel method to open the bandgap and study

the undamental physical properties o the

bandgap-opened graphene.

T

a y of bkthoughs:Awards and funding for Jack Ma

INNOVATIONINSPIRA

TION TO

INVENTION

THEUNIVERSITYOF WISCO

NSIN

-MADISO

N

INNOVATION

(Continued from front page)Justin Beck

Justin Beck (let) and Daniel Gartenbergwith their frst-place winning invention,Proactive Sleep.

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The February 6 issue o Institute,

the publication o IEEE, eatured

Proessor

among our new ellows. The

article highlighted Hagness medical imaging

research, particularly her use o computational

electromagnetics to develop and investigate

microwave imaging or breast tissue.

On March 10, Forbes.com

eatured microgrid technololgy

developed by Proessor Emeritus

. The microgrid

concept was one o ve trends to watch in the

2009 Clean Energy Trends report published

by market researcher Clean Edge. Microgrids,

local energy grids with their own generation

and storage, could provide all or part o the

power or a building or neighborhood and

serve as backup in case o larger grid ailures.

Currently, microgrid systems are in placeat the Sacramento, Caliornia, Municipal

Utility District, the Santa Rita Jail in Alameda

County, Caliornia, and in Wal-Mart stores.

In June, Proessor Emeritus

received the IEEE Nikola

Tesla Award as part o the 2009

IEEE Awards Presentations. The

IEEE Nikola Tesla Award recognizes Novotny

or pioneering contributions to the analysis

and understanding o AC machine dynamic

behavior and perormance in adjustable-

speed drives. This award is one o the highestproessional acclaims that a researcher can

receive rom IEEE peers. The 2009 award

winners have the special distinction o

receiving recognition on the occasion o the

125th anniversary o the IEEE.

A March 8 story in the Air Force

Timesquoted Proessor

. In the story, Female

airmen under-represented in tech

eld, Wendt pointed out that although high

school girls take as many math and science

courses as boys do, they are less likely to

continue pursue a career in technical elds.

In part, she says, its marketing: Engineering

and other technical elds oten receive

attention or being technically rigorous and

dicult, which might appeal more to men, but

actors that could appeal more to women

creativity and the ability to make a dierence

in peoples livesarent highlighted, she said.

faCULtY NeWsfaCULtY NeWs

P

Under the partnership, Vestas will provide unding support beginning this year to

as many as 10 graduate and undergraduate students working on wind technology

projects. The company also plans to provide visiting scholars to campus and start

a small research and development acility on the engineering campus.

The plans grow signicantly more ambitious over time, ultimately leading tothe ormation o a multidisciplinary center or advanced wind power technology.

Another stage o the partnership will support named proessorships or endowed

chairs with expanded ocus on wind-energy research and education. One named

proessorship will ocus on developing new curriculum materials to support the

emerging energy and sustainability elds.

The Vestas partnership is an exciting addition to the range o energy research

and education at the college, says COE Dean Paul Peercy. Once we solve energystorage issues, wind power potentially could supply as much as 20 percent o

the nations energy needs by 2030. Our students will be highly motivated to

participate in this growth industry.According to the DOE, recently unded wind-energy projects will begin to

address market and deployment challenges identied in the 2008 report,20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030. Increasing wind energy genera-

tion will be a critical actor in achieving the Obama administrations

goals or clean energy, while also supporting new green jobs.

To read more about the Vestas partnership, visit:

(Continued from front page)Vestas partnership

.

hgnsswns cng w

roessor Susan C. Hagness has received a 2009

Alliant Energy Underkofer Excellence in Teaching

Award. Four awards o $3,500 were oered to

aculty or sta rom UW System schools within the Alliant

Energy service area. Award recipients were especially selected or displaying an

uncommon commitment to teaching and eective teaching strategies, as well as

enabling ormer students to make notable achievements.

Hagness was recognized or her belie that students are more motivated tolearn i they see the relevance o the subject matter and that students learn most

eectively when they are engaged in an active learning environment that recognizes

dierent learning styles. Hagness also believes that students nd learning to be

most meaningul and enjoyable when they see their instructor as an advocate.

She has been involved in developing or revamping multiple engineering classes

in her 10 years at UW-Madison. One notable example is her Grand Challenges

course, which was developed or the COE 2010 Initiative. Grand Challenges

introduces reshmen to engineering disciplines rom the perspective o how

engineers can address the problems aced by society in the 21st century.

She also has integrated her research into the classroom by developing

computer-based educational tools or visualizing electromagnetic phenomena.

Hagness ocuses on computational and experimental applied electromagnetics,

with an emphasis on bioelectromagnetics and the development o diagnosticand therapeutic technologies or biomedical applications.

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oo-high electricity bills can leave consumers wondering i their energy providers are

cheating them. According to Associate Proessor Bernard Lesieutre, they just might be.

Lesieutre and his research group are trying to determine whether electricity suppliers

can manipulate the markets to their advantage.

Current guidelines overseeing energy markets are based on nancial models and regulations or

market share; however, those models dont take into account the physical limitations o the energy

grid. Power lines have a limited capacity or how much electricity they can carry beore they

become congested, and too much power can physically warp the cables. Even an exceptionally

hot day could reduce the amount o energy the lines can tolerate.

Because the lines cannot carry any more power, when conditions create congestion, competitors

might not be able to supply power to where its needed. As a result, one power company might

POWER STRUGGLE: avoctng fo ngy conss

n August 14, 2003, the largestelectrical blackout in U.S. history

knocked out power in the north-

eastern United States and parts o eastern

Canada. For up to our days, the outage

brought the lives o some 50 million people to a

standstill, at a cost o $4 billion to $10 billion.

Six years later, re-

searchers worldwide still

study the event, hoping

(among other things) that

the evidence will help

them identiy the perect

balance between the risko another blackout and

the reliability o a massive,

intricately interconnected

power system. Its both a very interesting

problem and an important problem to keep

the lights on and to have enough reliability

in our power system so that we can use

electricity, says Proessor Ian Dobson.

A ailure in your home electrical system

might mean that a circuit breaker trips or a

ety, says Dobson. We need reliable electricalpower, but we also need inexpensive electrical

power. And so how much do we all pay in our

electricity bills in order to pay or reliability?

Using computer models, Dobson, his

students and colleagues are studying cascad-

ing ailures at a very basic level. Even though

theyre very complicated in all the details, we

can look at blackouts and try to estimate how

big the initial disturbance was and how much,

on average, it tended to propagate, he says.

Looking at blackouts in this way is a very

high-level description, but I hope to learn inor-

mation that will help people understand the risk

o these large blackouts and help us to put

approximate numbers on how likely they are

and what are the consequences or our society.

The result might be that electrical system

operators can orecast an increased chance

o a blackout or a given time period. Those

projections, in turn, could help utilities better

determine how much to invest in adding

robustness and redundancy to the nations

transmission grid.

Tbecome the only provider

in an area or a time. I

they know or can guess

that, they can raise their

prices to make more

money, explains Lesieutre.

They know their electricity

is no longer substitutable. People cant get

their energy rom somewhere else because

the grid is overloaded.

Based on sensitivity analyses, Lesieutres

group has determined that such infation

is possible. While there are regulations or

substantial manipulation, current measures

only apply to instances where prices increase

by 300 percent or more.

Our concern is this high threshold. It

doesnt detect a lot o times when rates

are noncompetitive, says Lesieutre. Ourresearch is to come up with something with

a much ner resolution than that.

Having identied scenarios with potential

or market manipulation, the groups next step

is to develop measures to determine when

companies are taking advantage o those

scenarios. Ultimately, Lesieutre hopes to

prevent this market manipulation.

Lesieutre

use blows to prevent an overload rommelting down the whole system. Similarly,

the nations power grid is designed with

enough redundancy and robustness to handle

isolated ailures, such as a lightning strike

or even a scheduled line maintenance.

However, at the heart o a blackout are

ailures that propagate, or cascade, through-

out the power system. The distinctive thing

about cascading ailure is that one ailure

happens and it maybe weakens the system a

little bit, says Dobson. Its more likely that

the next ailure can happen ater that.

And just by chance, he says, the ailures

continue to snowball until theres a blackout.

While blackouts such as the August 2003

event can wreak havoc or days, they actually

are relatively inrequent, occurring every

couple o decades. As a result, its not

necessarily cost-eective to take measures

to eliminate them entirely. Extra transmission

lines, or example, add additional reliability

yet cost more than $1 million per mile to

construct. Theres a balance here, as a soci-

O

Dobson

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A map o theUnited States electrical grid

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o study how regions o the brain

communicate, neuroscientists

oten use a technique called

electroencephalography (EEG), which reads

electrical activity in the brain through sensors

on the scalp.However, the skull and the scalp blur

these EEG readings. In addition, a multitude

o signals rom background processes

make it dicult to pinpoint electrical activity

corresponding to specic tasks. Its like

standing outside a crowded party and trying

to sort out individual conversations, says

Proessor Barry Van Veen.

Van Veen and his students use signal-

processing techniques to lter out that noise

and enable them to study how one area o

the brain infuences another (see graphic

below). The brain is active all the time, he

says. Its in the midst o that background

noise that you have to identiy a specic set

o connections associated with a task.

One research paradigm is working

memory, a type o task-oriented short-term

memory. For example, working memory

allows a person to remember a phone

number long enough to dial it, or to remem-

T

Turning down the noisehelpsresearchers listen to the brain

Proessor BarrVan Veen (cenwith students(rom let to riPatrick CheunPam Limpiti,Andrew Bolstaand Matt Rebh

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Department o Electrical & Computer Engineering1415 Engineering Dr.Madison, WI 53706

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ber a series o notes or pattern o shapes long enough to repeat it. Neuroscientists hypothesize that several

regions o the brain are connected in working memory tasks. Van Veen and his students use their signal-

processing techniques to identiy electrical connections rom EEG data and determine how they change

under dierent conditions, such as task diculty or recall accuracy.The group also is interested in how connectivity in the brain changes between waking and sleep,

and more complicated activity such as language processing.

Van Veen is hopeul that, as the research progresses, his methods will provide some insight into

the workings o the brain and lead to better understanding or treatment o medical conditions like

epilepsy or schizophrenia.