Graduate Seminar - Fall 2009

All seminars to be held at 3:00 p.m. on Fridays in Kaufman 224. For more information, contact Dr. Sacharia Albin at (757)683-3741 or e-mail salbin@odu.edu. Refreshments will be provided.

Date	Seminar Details
September 4	Dr.  Arturo Tejada Ruiz Title: " Towards Automatic Control of Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopes : Current Developments and Opportunities." Abstract: Scanning transmission electron microscopes (STEMs) are indispensable tools for research at the nano-scale (e.g., material science, biology, semiconductors, etc.), because they can reveal internal (i.e., below the surface) chemical and structural information of a wide range of specimens. As a consequence, there is high industrial interest in developing STEMs with high-throughput, autonomous, nano-measuring capabilities.  This is the goal of, for example, the CONDOR project that is managed by the Embedded Systems Institute and FEI Company at Eindhoven, The Netherlands (www.esi.nl). To enable this goal, current manual STEM operations must be automated taking into account the microscope's time-dependent responses and dynamics. That is, STEMs should be studied from the systems and control perspective. To the best of our knowledge, such perspective is lacking in the literature. This presentation will summarize the efforts of our group at the Delft Center for Systems and Control towards providing such perspective and developing image-based control strategies for these microscopes.  The talk will provide a brief overview of the STEM image formation process, with emphasis on the defocus control problem. In addition, a new control-oriented STEM model will be presented, along with the progress made towards developing an image-based defocus sensor. Finally, several research opportunities related to this topic will be highlighted, including areas such as system identification, image processing, and closed-loop control. Bio:  Dr. Arturo Tejada Ruiz received an MSc degree and a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, in 2002 and 2006, in the area of discrete-time stochastic hybrid systems. Between October 2007 and March 2008 he was a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA Langley Research Center, where he aided in the analysis of fault detectors in aircraft wings. In April 2008, he joined the CONDOR project at the Delft Center for Systems and Control, where he is currently a Postdoctoral Research Scientist and is working towards introducing control theory to transmission electron microscopy. His research interests include hybrid systems, two-dimensional systems, system identification, and statistical signal analysis   Host: Dr. Gonzalez
September 11	Albin/Graduate Advising
September 18	Dr. C. J. Reddy, President EM Software & Systems (USA) Inc. Newport News Title:  "Design of UHF RFID Systems with the aid of Computational Electromagnetics." Abstract: Though Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems have been in use for various applications in the past, currently they are gaining popularity due to their application to retail supply chain management systems. Compared to low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) RFID systems (which operate through near-field inductive coupling and thus have relatively short read range), ultra high frequency  (UHF) RFID systems operate through farfield backscattering, have larger read range, and have been widely used in supply chain  management and inventory control.  However, very often the electromagnetic (EM) performance of the reader/tag systems could be  significantly degraded due to the complex physical environments.  With the aid of computational electromagnetic (CEM) tools, such  situations can be analyzed and optimized to improve the performance of RFID systems. This talk presents options for the EM  characterization of such systems with the aid of full wave or hybrid numerical methods. Analysis of RFID tags, readers, tag placement,  tag/reader coupling, and tag/reader systems in complex environments will be addressed. Bio: Dr. Reddy is the President of EM Software & Systems (USA) Inc. At EMSS (USA), he is leading the marketing and support of commercial 3D electromagnetic simulation software, FEKO and antenna design software, AntennaMagus in the US, Canada, Mexico and Central America. Dr. Reddy is also the President and Chief Technical Officer of Applied EM Inc, a small company specializing in computational electromagnetics, antenna design and development. At Applied EM, Dr. Reddy successfully led many Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) projects from the US Department of Defense (DoD).  In 1991, he was awarded NSERC Visiting Fellowship to conduct research at Communications Research Center, Ottawa, Canada. Later in 1993, he was awarded a National Research Council (USA)'s Research Associateship to conduct research in computational electromagnetics at NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia.  Dr. Reddy worked as a Research Professor at Hampton University from 1995 to 2000, while conducting research at NASA Langley Research Center. During this time, he developed various FEM codes for electromagnetics. He also worked on design and simulation of antennas for automobiles and aircraft structures. Particularly development of his hybrid Finite Element Method/Method of Moments/Geometrical Theory of Diffraction code for cavity backed aperture antenna analysis received Certificate of Recognition from NASA.  Dr. Reddy is a Senior Member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), USA. He is also a member of Applied Computational Electromagnetic Society (ACES) and is elected to serve on ACES Board of Directors. He has published more than 80 referred journal articles and conference papers so far. Host: Dr. Albin
September 25	Praveen Sankaran ODU Vision Lab Title: "A Subspace Projection Methodology for Nonlinear Manifold based Face  Recognition." Abstract: Feature extraction methods aim to find compact representations of data that are easy to classify. Measurements with similar values are grouped into same category, while those with differing values are deemed to be of separate categories. For most practical systems, the meaningful features of a pattern class lie in a low dimensional nonlinear constraint region (manifold) within the high dimensional data space. A learning algorithm to model this nonlinear region and to project patterns to this feature space is developed. The proposed feature extraction strategy is employed to improve face recognition accuracy under varying illumination conditions and facial expressions. Though the face features show variations under these conditions, the features of one individual tend to cluster together and can be considered as a neighborhood. Low dimensional representations of face patterns in the feature space may lie in a nonlinear constraint region, which when modeled leads to efficient pattern classification. A feature space encompassing multiple pattern classes can be trained by modeling a separate constraint region for each pattern class and obtaining a mean constraint region by averaging all the individual regions. Face recognition accuracy is further improved by introducing the concepts of modularity, discriminant analysis and phase congruency into the proposed method. Experiments performed on various databases to evaluate the performance of the proposed face recognition technique have shown improvement in recognition accuracy, especially under varying illumination conditions and facial expressions. This shows that the integration of multiple subspaces, each representing a part of a higher order nonlinear function, could be able to represent a pattern with variability. Bio: Praveen Sankaran is a Research Assistant at the ODU Vision Lab associated with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. He received the Bachelors degree in Applied Electronics & Instrumentation from the University of Calicut (MES College of Engineering), India, in 2002, and Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Old Dominion University in 2005 and 2009 respectively. His topic of research is Biometric image processing, especially relating to face recognition algorithms.
October 2	Dr. Kyekyoon (Kevin) Kim Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering Director, Thin Film and Charged Particle Research Laboratory Affiliated Professor, Bioengineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Nuclear, Plasma and Radiological Engineering, Micro and Nanotechnology Lab, Institute for Genomic Biology, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Host: Dr. Elsayed-Ali
October 16	Dr. Guangfan Zhang, Ph.D Sr. Research Engineer Signal Processing Group Intelligent Automation, Inc. Rockville, MD   Title: "Individualized Cognitive Modeling for Closed-Loop Task Mitigation"   Abstract: Human operators play an important role in performing missions. However, most of current automated systems do not account for the functional state of the human operator. Mismatched operator state and cognitive load (either over-load or under-load) conditions can lead to disastrous consequences. Many factors, such as environmental conditions and sleep quality, can affect the operator state and lead to suboptimal performance in human operators. Therefore, it is important to monitor Operator Functional State (OFS) in real time to assure mission success. Available OFS modeling tools have limited applicability as they do not account for the considerable individual differences due to individual physical fitness and adaptability to external/internal conditions. In this talk, we will discuss the development of an individualized OFS model that monitors individual functional state and identifies states that are likely to lead to operational errors, which in turn can dynamically provide assistance in optimizing mission performance and minimizing risks. Bio: Dr. Guangfan Zhang is a senior research engineer at Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI). He received his Ph.D. in 2005 from Georgia Institute of Technology. He has extensive research and development experience in the areas of signal processing, chemical/biological agent detection and identification, human performance assessment, and diagnostics and prognostics for mechanical/electronic systems. After joined IAI, he serves as the technical lead/key personnel for various projects, including agent-based health monitoring system, engine fault tolerant control, enhanced speech recognition, aircraft structure diagnostics, enhanced prognostics for electronics, Field Effect Transistors (FET) prognostics, under-water sensor network, 3D visualization, intelligent tactical electric grid control, NDE standards, operator state assessment, closed-loop task mitigation, and multidimensional chemical analysis. Host: Dr. Jiang Li
October 23
October 30
November 6	Dr. Chien-Chung Shen University of Delaware   Host: Dr. Min Song
November 13	Dr. Stephen B Knisley, PhD Professor of Mechanical Engineering Batten Endowed Chair in Biomedical Engineering Old Dominion University    Title: "Modulation of cardiac electrical defibrillation thresholds by current near the edges of inactive conductors"   Abstract: Cardiac electric field stimulation is the initial step in the process of defibrillation.  We previously found that the probability of successful defibrillation increases when certain inactive conductors are placed in the electric field. This beneficial effect is thought to be due to stimulatory current at the interface between the inactive conductor and the heart.  In recent work, the current was imaged using changes in transmittance of indium-tin-oxide (ITO) conductors.  X-ray diffraction confirmed that the production of current with these conductors involved electrical reduction of indium. The images indicated that current was highly concentrated near edges, which was predicted with a computer model having a realistic nonlinear interfacial current-voltage relationship. Cardiac optical mapping revealed that the edge of an inactive conductor in an electric field produced excitation in the rabbit heart. Thus, interfacial current near the edge of an inactive conductor can excite the heart and contribute to defibrillation.   Bio: Stephen B. Knisley received the Bachelor's of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering at Duke University, Durham, NC in 1973. He received the PhD in Biomedical Engineering at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988. He performed research at Duke University's Department of Biomedical Engineering, and in 1994 joined the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine at The University of Alabama at Birmingham where he taught and performed research in cardiac electrophysiology. In 2000 he joined the faculty in Biomedical Engineering, Medicine, and The Curriculum in Applied Engineering at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There he was a founder and Director of the Joint Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. He joined Old Dominion University in 2009, where he is currently a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Batten Chair in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Knisley is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.   Host:  Dr. Albin
November 20	Dr. Jianhua (Jack) Yao, PhD Staff Scientist, Manager Clinical Image Processing Services Radiology and Imaging Science National Institutes of Health Bio: Dr. Jack Yao is currently a Staff Scientist and manager in the RAD&IS at the National Institutes of Health, where he manages a clinical image processing lab. He is also affiliated with the Virtual Endoscopy and Computer-Aided Detection Lab at NIH. His research interests include clinical image processing, deformable model, nonrigid registration, CAD and CT colonography. He has published more than 100 papers in journals and conference proceedings, and holds two patents in colon cancer CAD technique. Dr. Yao is a reviewer for IEEE TMI, IEEE TBME, IEEE IP, Medical Physics, Computer Assisted Tomography, and Medical Image Analysis. Dr. Yao was a co-chair of the CAD section in IEEE ISBI 2007 and ICIP 2007. He is also a guest editor for a special issue of Pattern Recognition on tumor imaging. Host: Dr. Jiang Li
December 4	Albin/Graduate Advising