RESEARCH NOTES





Research in Cyberspace
An on-line technical journal debuts to highlight engineering and science at GTRI.

Scientists and engineers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute have long used the Internet to conduct research. Now they can publish the results there and present their work in a more timely manner.
An on-line technical journal featuring the work of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) debuted this spring. The Journal of Technology will features technical articles on GTRI work, such as this traffic management center simulator.

An online technical journal featuring the work of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) debuted this spring. The Journal of Technology, is on the World Wide Web at http://www.gtri.gatech.edu/jot/, and can also be reached through GTRI's primary Web page. The JOT targets scientists, engineers and research sponsors. It will be updated quarterly.

"The Journal of Technology is a more scholarly presentation of the work of our research personnel than found in Research Horizons, a magazine for Georgia Tech's entire research community," explains Dr. Edward K. Reedy, GTRI's vice president and director. "Besides being a practical communication of our research work, this new journal is an effort to test and develop new ways to communicate knowledge by electronic means, rather than printed paper."

Whereas most technical journals are highly specialized in content, the Journal of Technology showcases the broad gamut of GTRI research, ranging from information technology to defense electronics and simulation to materials and manufacturing.

Articles in the first edition include the following:

The publication features both abstracts and full text of articles along with photographs, charts and illustrations. Authors' biographical information and e-mail addresses are provided along with links to the home pages of their respective laboratories.

Planned for future editions is an archival database that would allow readers to search for past papers, relevant commentary and connected material.

"It's been challenging to produce a technical publication in a Web format," says Henry Paris, editor of the new journal and associate director of GTRI's Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory. "In spite of recent improvements in Web authoring software, conversion of equations, halftone images and line drawings from diverse word processor files is still cumbersome."

Yet Paris notes that the interactive possibilities of the new technical journal are particularly exciting. "It's an opportunity to explore entirely new ways of creating and accessing written information and ideas," he says.

For years, publishing in the scientific community has been a highly formalized process requiring lengthy review and approval, he explains. Although this system ensures a high degree of accuracy, it also has a major drawback: By the time ideas finally hit the public forum, it might be two or more years from when they were first put on paper, he says.

The Internet could revolutionize technical publishing by balancing accuracy with timeliness. Paris envisions technical articles being published and reviewed on-line with reviewers' comments available to readers, who might even be the reviewers themselves.

"Sometimes the formal review process can enforce the perceptions of reviewers and suppress novel or controversial ideas," Paris says. "Treating the technical article as a 'work-in-progress' by preserving an article's evolution through the review process would provide greater synergy of content and critique."

For more information, contact Henry Paris, Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, GA 30332-0826. (Telephone: 404/894-3688) (E-mail: henry.paris@gtri.gatech.edu)

— T.J. Becker


Liotta Appointed New Vice Provost for Research
Regents professor will oversee graduate programs, industry relationship
Dr. Charles Liotta

Dr. Charles Liotta, Regents Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has been appointed Vice Provost for Research and Dean of Graduate Studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

In this position, Liotta oversees the Office of Interdisciplinary Programs, managing Georgia Tech's relationship with the Georgia Tech Research Corporation and the Graduate Studies Office. He also coordinates the various programs involved in interacting with the Georgia Research Alliance.

Other duties include managing the cost-sharing and matching resources available to Georgia Tech. "He will be working with graduate coordinators in the schools and colleges to ensure that we are competitive in attracting the top graduate students and working to solidify and expand the recent successes we have had in contracting with industry," says Provost Mike Thomas.

Liotta has a distinguished 34-year career at Georgia Tech in teaching and research, and, with Dr. Charles Eckert, he has been instrumental in developing the Specialty Separations Center.

Liotta is a past recipient of Georgia Tech's Outstanding Teacher Award, Outstanding Faculty Award given by student government and the Sigma Xi Research Award. He also chaired the Georgia Tech Executive Board. Liotta is still active in research with a group of seven graduate students and two post-doctoral associates.


Interchanging Components
Manufacturing Research Center project could cut electronics assembly costs.

Developing a framework for interchanging electronics assembly equipment and software from different vendors is the focus of a new project at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Manufacturing Research Center (MARC). This "plug and play" capability could yield substantial savings in the cost of manufacturing circuit board assemblies for a wide range of applications.
"Plug and play" technology project leader Andrew Dugenske examines equipment in the Center for Board Assembly Research at Georgia Tech's Manufacturing Research Center.

The work began earlier this year after the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) chose MARC's printed circuit board electronics assembly facility to be a demonstration test bed site. The task leader for the project is Andrew Dugenske, a research manager in MARC.

MARC's printed circuit board electronics assembly facility began operation recently, after Georgia Tech-funded construction was completed. Personnel in the Center for Board Assembly Research (CBAR) in MARC operate the electronics assembly facility, which initially received more than $3 million in equipment and software from numerous vendors. The CBAR facility contains a state-of-the-art integrated surface mount/direct die attach printed wiring board assembly line with extensive automated in-line post-process inspection capability.

It is NEMI's Factory Information Systems Working Group that is helping make Georgia Tech's MARC facility a demonstration test bed for new advancements in information and control systems for surface mount electronics assembly. NEMI is a consortium of electronics suppliers and manufacturers whose primary purpose is to improve the competitiveness of North American manufacturers.

In addition to the NEMI "plug and play" project, other activities involving Georgia Tech's CBAR facility include: flip chip processing, equipment interfacing, high-speed high-precision assembly, process monitoring and control, line-level supervisory control and Web-based monitoring.

— Pamela D. Rountree


Benchmarking On-line
Environmental management software targets small manufacturers.

Smaller manufacturers in Georgia, and eventually the nation, stand to benefit from new environmental performance software developed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI).
Click on graphic to see larger version (51k).

A self-assessment tool and benchmarking guide, the software was recently beta tested nationally and is undergoing further refinements, according to project director Roc Tschirhart in GTRI's Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory (EOEML). Called Eco.Diagnosis, the software should be available this summer to companies across Georgia.

Launched in 1996, the EOEML project adapted successful French software to the American business and regulatory environment. Arranged in a "Yes/No" format, it covers 10 topic areas — environmental management, air quality, water quality, hazardous waste, storage tanks, Superfund Amendments Reauthorization Act: Title III, occupational safety and health, pollution prevention, risk management and the impact of a firm's products on the environment. A graphical scoring of responses to several hundred questions indicates a firm's level of environmental management and compliance. This score enables the firm to compare itself against industry norms and measure its own progress.

"Smaller companies often lack the time and resources to address crucial environmental concerns," says Tschirhart, adding that currently available environmental management software tools are typically too expensive and complex for small and mid-size companies, and they tend to be too narrow in scope. "Ours will apply broadly and be easy to use. It will allow manufacturers to see what regulations apply to their facilities and give them a European perspective on labeling, product lifecycle and ongoing environmental management."

In addition, the tool will contain an Internet-based benchmarking component to allow companies to compare their level of performance with that of other firms. The tool also can provide guidance on how to remedy deficiencies.

Eco.Diagnosis is similar to an expert system, Tschirhart says, in that it draws on and is linked to the experience and expertise of specialists in EOEML's Safety, Health and Environmental Technology Division.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is sponsoring development of the software, which eventually will be made available to NIST's 65 Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers for distribution to firms across the country.

For more information, contact Roc Tschirhart, Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Atlanta, GA 30332-0837. (Telephone: 404/894-8045) (E- mail: roc.tschirhart@gtri.gatech.edu)

— Lincoln Bates


A Meeting of the Minds
Packaging Research Center establishes international high-tech collaboration.

The Packaging Research Center (PRC) at the Georgia Institute of Technology has established a partnership with seven international universities, positioning itself to become a world leader in the next generation of electronics packaging research and education.

"The Georgia Tech PRC is not only the center with strength in electronics packaging, and we want to take advantage of the world-class expertise of other universities around the globe," said Dr. Rao R. Tummala, director of the PRC.

Funded by a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, this new collaboration strengthens the already impressive array of expertise at the PRC. "This seven-university partnership adds technical expertise in areas where the PRC is weak or is just getting started," Dr. Tummala said. "Well-coordinated university collaboration in electronics packaging is necessary to support the projected electronics industry growth from the current $800 billion to $2 trillion within the next seven years. We aim to help with industry's need for the next generation of packaging collectively."

Researchers participating in the PRC partnership were chosen from a university collaboration workshop in early 1997. They will add their universities' research capabilities and prototype facilities to the PRC. They will also work with PRC faculty and students with similar interests and will have access to its facilities, which include $30 million of research and prototype integration research laboratories. This spring, Dr. Tummala expects to double the number of universities involved in the collaboration.

— Jackie Nemeth


Saving money with weather predictions
El Nino forecasting benefits agriculture.

Taxpayers may be doing better than Wall Street investors when it comes to rate of return on their investments.

A cost benefit analysis of government-funded research on the El Nino weather phenomenon indicates the annual rate of return on that taxpayer investment is at least double the government's minimum acceptable standard, says the study's co-author, Dr. Peter Sassone, an associate professor of economics at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Click on graphic to see larger version (25k).

The study found that the Tropical Ocean Global Atmosphere (TOGA) climate research program provides an economic return on investment to the United States of at least 13 to 26 percent annually. And that range is conservative because it only includes benefits to the U.S. agricultural industry, researchers say. The government's minimally acceptable rate of return on an investment is 7 percent; it is based on the marginal pre-tax rate of return of an average recent investment in the priate sector.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) funded the study to determine whether its climate research is a significantly beneficial investment and worthy of continued support, says NOAA chief economist Dr. Rodney Weiher. He and Sassone conducted the research using TOGA as the case study.

TOGA was a successful 10-year scientific effort to understand and model the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather phenomenon. It involved deployment of an array of ocean-observing buoys. Now, climate models can predict El Nino events, such as the current one, a year or so in advance. El Nino is the abnormal warming of sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean; it has important consequences for weather around the globe. Among these are increased rainfall across California and the southern United States.

"We concluded that the TOGA program was a sound use of public resources, and that additional funding of climate forecasting R & D efforts — at both the national and international levels — merits serious consideration," the researchers say in their just- published paper in the book "Operational Oceanography: The Challenge for European Cooperation."

In the cost benefit analysis, researchers focused on the benefits of TOGA to the U.S. agricultural sector because it is probably more affected by weather than other sectors, Sassone says. The estimated annual dollar benefits to agriculture are $240 million to $266 million (in 1995 dollars). The estimated benefits are a measure of the gain in consumers' and producers' surplus associated with improved weather information. The actual benefits are dependent on the accuracy of the forecasts, which range from 60 to 80 percent correctness, and the farmers' acceptance of the forecasts.
NOAA Current SST Anomaly Chart based on satellite data. (Click on graphic to view most recent version of chart.)

"I think the $266 million figure is closer to being right, though it's probably a little optimistic," Sassone says. But this figure doesn't include the benefits to other economic sectors, such as water resource management, he adds.

In essence, this analysis says, "If farmers learned what the El Nino forecast was and abided by it over the course of a decade or so, and made whatever adjustments they could, on average they would be better off than if they didn't," Sassone explains. Such adjustments include planting earlier or later, using a different variety of seed or altering the mix of crops planted.

The researchers arrived at that simple conclusion in a not altogether simple way. "While cost benefit analysis is a highly refined and widely accepted tool used frequently by economists to evaluate alternative public sector investments, there are certain characteristics of climate prediction investments which render them inherently more difficult (than conventional public investments such as roads, bridges, buildings) to assess," the researchers explain.

Those difficulties include: uncertainty about the actual costs of the forecasting program; uncertainty about the ultimate success of the proposed research; the dependence of benefits on the actual climate that occurs; the creation of a baseline scenario that predicts what forecast would be issued without the proposed research; and the behavioral responses to forecasts.

The researchers overcame some of these difficulties by focusing their analysis on a case study of TOGA and its future, they say. They had facts on the TOGA study's scientific success and could estimate its future costs with confidence because the resulting forecasting program is being implemented soon. Also, they could make inferences from this information about the value of other climate research.

Sassone and Weiher feel confident about their rate of return estimates because their analysis considered several key variables. They are: the accuracy of forecasts (ranging from 60 to 80 percent); the time horizon over which benefits are counted (10 and 20 years from now); farmers' acceptance of El Nino forecasts; and the future costs of the El Nino observing system.

Researchers set slow, moderate and immediate rates at which farmers would accept El Nino forecasts over a decade. Those rates ranged from 10 percent in the first year of the slow category to 95 percent in the "immediate" category.

"Farming has become a high-tech industry," Sassone says in explaining the study's assumptions. "Farmers are continually incorporating new technology, such as better fertilizer, seeds and pesticides.... While El Nino forecasts are a somewhat different kind of 'technology' than farmers are accustomed to, we assumed here that the adoption and use of such forecasts by mainstream agriculture will not be remarkably different from farmers' adoption of other new technologies."

The result of this analysis yielded the researchers' benefit estimate of 13 to 26 percent. And it led them to recommend future research on the benefits of climate research to economic sectors other than agriculture. That research has, in fact, already begun, and preliminary results may be available next year.

For more information, contact Dr. Peter Sassone, School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0515. (Telephone: 404/894-4912) (E-mail: peter.sassone@econ.gatech.edu)

— Jane Sanders


Outstanding Researchers
Tech faculty members receive recent honors

An illustration by Dr. G. Paul Neitzel, a professor of mechanical engineering, was published on the cover of the January 1998 issue of Physics Today. The journal is the monthly publication of the American Institute of Physics. His article (co-authored with Pasquale Dell'Aversana), "When Liquids Stay Dry," was published in the same issue (vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 38-41).

* * *

The American Institute of Chemists (AIC) recently elected Dr. William S. Rees Jr. a fellow of the Institute. Rees, a professor of materials science and engineering, is the second chemist in Georgia to join the ranks of this prestigious membership category.

Rees is the director of the Molecular Design Institute. His research interests are the synthesis and characterization of inorganic and organometallic compounds for use in the preparation of electronic materials.

* * *

Dr. Dmitris N. Mavris, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering, recently received the Boeing Aerospace Co.'s A.D. Welliver Summer Faculty Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Career Award.

The fellowship promotes stronger ties between industry and academia. Mavris won the four-year NSF award for his proposal titled "A Stochastic Approach to Designing Affordable, Environmentally Acceptable Systems."

* * *

Dr. April S. Brown and Dr. John B. Peatman were recently named fellows of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Associate Professor Brown was elected as ECE's first female IEEE Fellow for contributions toward the development of lattice-matched and pseudomorphic high electron mobility field effect transistors.

Peatman, a professor of computer engineering, was elected for contributions as an educator in the design of digital systems.

* * *

Dr. Jerry H. Ginsberg, professor of the School of Mechanical Engineering, recently received the 1998 Archie Higdon Distinguished Educator Award from the Mechanics Divison of the American Society for Engineering Education. The award recognizes his distinguished and outstanding contributions to the field of mechanics education.

* * *

Dr. Richard Neu, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, recently won the 1998 Outstanding New Mechanics Educator Award from the Mechanics Divison of the American Society for Engineering Education. The award recognizes his outstanding effort and achievement as a new mechanics educator.

* * *

Dr. Timothy A. Salthouse, a Regents' Professor in the School of Psychology, has been elected a William James Fellow of the American Psychological Society (APS) for 1998. It is the highest award offered by the APS.

Salthouse's research addresses the relations of aging on various aspects of cognitive functioning.

* * *


Contents | Research Horizons | GT Research News | GTRI | Georgia Tech

Send questions and comments regarding these pages to Webmaster@gtri.gatech.edu

Last updated: June 30, 1998