Data has been analyzed from Thomson Scientific’s (Institute for Scientific Information) database of “University / Institutional Science Indcators” for the period, 2001-2005. The 5 most influential Mechanical Engineering Departments have been named, based on the number of citations to their publications. (Princeton is #2.)
http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf”The Bridge presents thoughtful opinion and analysis on engineering research, education, and practice; science and technology policy; and the roles of engineering and technology in all aspects of society.” Volume 36, issue 4 is now available, and has papers from the 12th U.S. Frontiers of Engineering: http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/MKEZ-6WHS2U?OpenDocument
Its title entry in our main catalog is: (The) Bridge / National Academy of Engineering
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=01042007From: What’s New@The National-Academies.org
Recipients of 2007 Engineering Honors Announced
The National Academy of Engineering announced the recipients of three $500,000 prizes. Timothy J. Berners-Lee will receive the Charles Stark Draper Prize for developing the World Wide Web. Yuan-Cheng “Bert” Fung will be awarded the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize for his pioneering work in biomechanics. Harold S. Goldberg, Jerome E. Levy, and Arthur W. Winston will share the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for developing a multidisciplinary graduate program designed to produce engineering leaders.
From Knowledgespeak.com, Jan 29, 2007: “The redesigned site offers more content, as well as an enhanced interface for the global aviation, aerospace and defence community”: http://www.aviationweek.com. Click here to read the original press release: http://www.mcgraw-hill.com/releases/aviationweek/20070124.shtml
Professor Ed Coyle spoke at the Lunchtime Seminar on Teaching Science and Technology to Nonscientists today. He described a great program which he founded at Purdue University in 1995. His idea is to mutually benefit the community and the university by assessing technology needs with community organizations, and the university proposing solutions by devising engineering projects. Funding is by grant from society or foundation. Professors and students design, develop and manage the project. The projects involve committments of a year anyway, and credit is given for successful completion.
Prof. Edward J. Coyle can be reached at Electrical Engineering in the E-QUAD or ejc@Princeton.EDU He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching of Electrical Engineering and the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education.
He is helping to launch projects in Princeton. Prof. Catherine Peters is leading a group of students in “Green retrofitting” an old building at the Stony Brook Watershed Association. Prof. Michael Littman is instructing Princeton Young Achievers in rebuilding a 19th century clock from a tower in Trenton. Here is a link to the Purdue website: http://webscript.princeton.edu/~epics/main.php?section=main&sel=main
NAE Celebrates National Engineer’s Week Feb. 18-24 is National Engineer’s Week. During this week, professional and educational organizations collaborate to raise awareness of engineering’s benefit to society and to promote education in math, science, and technology. To read more: http://www.nas.edu/headlines/20070216.html
WTOP Radio Series on Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering works with the Washington, D.C. region’s only all-news radio station— WTOP Radio— and the nation’s only all-news radio station for federal employees— WFED AM 1050— to provide features highlighting engineering innovations and stories that add technical context to issues in the news. WTOP’s Radio Series on Engineering explores a wide variety of topics ranging from how bioengineering can show the benefits of exercise to new longer lasting digital camera batteries. Your comments and ideas are welcome. Please contact Randy Atkins at atkins@nae.edu.
The MIT Libraries have canceled access to the Society of Automotive Engineers’ web-based database of technical papers, rejecting the SAE’s requirement that MIT accept the imposition of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology.
SAE’s DRM technology severely limits use of SAE papers and imposes unnecessary burdens on readers. With this technology, users must download a DRM plugin, Adobe’s “FileOpen,” in order to read SAE papers. This plugin limits use to on-screen viewing and making a single printed copy, and does not work on Linux or Unix platforms.
The whole story is posted on the MIT Libraries Blog: http://news-libraries.mit.edu/blog/archives/388
Continue reading "SAE Digital Library Canceled at MIT, due to DRM imposition" »
The original press release can be found at www.scitopia.org. This federation of databases will provide free access to 3 million bibliographic records over the last 150 years of the research most cited in scholarly journals and patents. The original group of 13 societies plan to invite others to join. The founding partners are: AGU, AIAA, AIP, APS, ASCE, ASME, ECS, IEEE, IOP, OSA, SPIE, SAE, & SIAM.
This site was created at C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) as a central repository for nanotechnology news. The two main sections are: breaking news from the “nano-world”, and the archive portion. Princeton University has access to the archives as well as the free news service.
From: What’s New@The National-Academies.org, April 27, 2007
“NAE Elects President, Foreign Secretary, and Councillors Charles Vest has been elected as the new president of the National Academy of Engineering. Vest, a mechanical engineer, is president emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Foreign secretary George Bugliarello and councillor Lawrence Papay were re-elected, and Linda Abriola, Ruth David, and Charles Elachi were elected as new councillors. All terms begin on July 1.”
Continue reading "National Academy of Engineering has new President" »
EIN News launches online news aggregation service focused on auto sector - 25 May 2007
Internet data mining and search services provider Internet Product Development Group, Inc. (IPD Group), US, has announced the launch of the Automotive Industry Today news service (http://automotive.einnews.com/), expanding its EIN News portfolio of media monitoring sites. A free trial period is offered, however, this is a subscription service. IPD Group provides niche industries-focused Internet data mining and searching tools to corporations, institutions and professionals. The company’s media monitoring and newsletter services are designed as alternatives to high cost services such as Lexis-Nexis. (Princeton subscribes to L-N as well as Factiva. Here is a basic comparison page by Bordelon.)
Continue reading "Automotive industry news on the web (EIN)" »
The IEEE New Technology Connections Portal provides visitors with an overview of key emerging technologies supported by the New Technologies Directions committee, and a list of resources to obtain additional information. Each featured technology includes a general description, upcoming conferences, news articles, technical papers, related standards, professional organizations, and academic programs. Technologies currently featured in the portal include RFID, remote sensing, wind power, and WiFi, with more to be added.
We have access to SPIE Digital Library Online , an extensive resource of information on photonics and optics, which enables access to more than 230,000 technical papers from SPIE Journals and Conference Proceedings from 1990 to the present.
“Nature” journal has opened a new site called Scintilla. The site serves as an aggregator for science news collected from publications, news wires and science weblogs.
The ASEE Annual Conference will be held this year June 24-27, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawaii. On Sunday June 24 the workshop “Measuring the lifelong learning outcome in terms of information literacy components” will introduce engineering educators to methods and examples on how information literacy skills can be integrated into the curriculum for the purpose of assessing the lifelong learning outcome derived from ABET Criteria 3i.
This is a link to an interview with Ms Klawe, by Paul Fain and audio slide show from The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 22, 2007, p. A9 . She is Harvey Mudd’s new president, the former Dean of Princeton’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.
New NAE President Arrives.
Charles Vest begins a six-year term as the new president of the National Academy of Engineering this month. Vest, a mechanical engineer, is president emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Elected to the NAE in 1993, he has participated in a number of National Academies studies, including the landmark 2007 report Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, which focused on the key role science and engineering play in U.S. innovation and international competitiveness.
The link contains links to the press release, a Statement from Charles Vest, and the NAE Homepage.
Source: What’s New@The National-Academies.org, July 13, 2007
From today’s PhysicsWeb Alerts (physicsweb.org, Physics World, IOP), here are a couple of headlines and topic sentences:
Big science needs vacuum innovation (Jul 30) http://physicsweb.org/article/world/20/7/43 Vacuum technology will be crucial to the success of many large experiments of the future. Joe Herbert outlines some common challenges faced by scientists.
Big science and China hold future promise (Jul 30) http://physicsweb.org/article/world/20/7/44 The next 10 years will see the launch of a number of large and impressive physics experiments that will push the limits of vacuum technology.
The Basic and Engineering Sciences site includes: Official Statements, Strategy, Projects, Websites, Publications, Multimedia, News, Events, and Contacts. The themes of the Basic and Engineering Sciences include: Chemistry, Energy, Engineering, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, HIV Research, Science Education, and Women and Science.
From the introduction to the site: “The overall focus of the Engineering Sciences and Technology programme is on human and institutional capacity building. The programme also aims to enhance the application of engineering to poverty eradication, sustainable social and economic development, other Millennium Development Goals and related priorities for development.”
The larger thematic areas in the Natural Sciences include:
Fresh Water; People, Biodiversity and Ecology; Oceans; Earth Sciences; Basic Sciences; Engineering Sciences; Coasts & Small Islands; Science Policy & Sustainable Development; Natural Disaster Reduction; and Renewable Sources of Energy
Engineering Information’s Compendex Database adds 10 millionth record - 06 Aug 2007 Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter: “Engineering Information (Ei), Inc., a US-based provider of online information to engineering researchers, has announced that the 10 millionth record has been added to the Compendex database and loaded on the Engineering Village discovery platform. Compendex is a bibliographic database covering published engineering literature, which is used by professional engineers, engineering students, researchers and information professionals worldwide.”
“Since its creation in 1969, Compendex has offered broad coverage of significant engineering literature available. The database has expanded its coverage steadily as the volume of published engineering literature has grown. More than 650,000 new records were added to the database in 2006 alone. Records are carefully selected and indexed to ensure a breadth of literature upon which researchers can rely. Compendex now covers over 5,600 serial sources each year, originating from over 55 countries.”
Princeton’s subscription to Compendex (EI Compendex Plus) goes all the way back to 1884.
Click here to read the original press release.
The National Academy of Engineering works with the Washington, D.C. region’s only all-news radio station— WTOP Radio— and the nation’s only all-news radio station for federal employees— WFED AM 1050— to provide weekly features highlighting engineering innovations and stories that add technical context to issues in the news
Archives can be browsed by year or subjects: Aerospace, Chemical Engineering, Electronics/Computing/Internet, Energy, Environment, Health/Medicine/Biotechnology, Manufacturing and Systems, Materials, Mechanical Engineering, Practice of Engineering, Sound, Sports, Structures and Traffic
Continue reading "Engineering Innovation Podcast and Radio Series" »
The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), a trusted developer of high-quality technical standards for materials, products, systems and services, will provide access to books and manuals through Knovel. Subscribers wanted to be able to utilize Knovel’s great search functionality for ASTM publications. “Knovel has uniquely optimized content, search and interactive tools for specific engineering disciplines. Knovel’s content includes material properties, process and design information, standard procedures, equations, and formulations.”
“The ASTM titles will enhance Knovel’s coverage of materials and testing for the aerospace, petroleum and energy industries, as well as providing design and construction engineers with the technical information they need to selects, test, analyze and use materials.” (Delores Meglio, VP of Content Mangement at Knovel) Source: Frontline Global Marketing Services Ltd (Laura Cox)
Yesterday, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Peter Gruenberg of Germany and Albert Fert of France whose work revolutionized digital data storage. “Their discovery that ultra-thin slices of metal have different electrical properties in a magnetic field not only changed the musical and computing habits of the entire planet but also altered the very landscape of how people think about information, and the ways in which music, movies and ideas can be shared.”
Read the whole article in the Washington Post:
There is a cool graph illustrating hard disk storage growth, and some photos with audio.
Data Storage Discovery Earns Nobel Breakthrough by Frenchman, German Empowers iPods and Laptops
By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 10, 2007; Page A03
Engineering Librarian, Adriana Popescu writes: “…we now have online access to all Elsevier journals. For some journals, we can access articles back to the first issue, for others we only have access from 1995 on. The catalog records may take a while to update, so please remember to check the www.sciencedirect.com site to see if we can download Elsevier articles before we submit [Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan] requests or purchase articles from ScienceDirect.
Happy 2008!
Elsevier journals are also included and indexed topically in subject-based databases, such as Engineering Index (Compendex) and selectively by Web of Science. Scopus, the other huge interdisciplinary database includes most, if not all, Elsevier journals, since it is being developed and maintained by Elsevier.
Recently Knovel has added the content of these titles, among many others: Wiley’s Water Encyclopedia, Elsevier’s Handbook of Water and Wastewater Treatment Technologies, and McGraw-Hill’s Applied Hydrology.
Today, Knovel has announced (via Knowledgespeak Newletter) that they have an agreement with ISA ( global automation standards) to add their books and technical references for automation and control.
Google to offer online storage for scientists via Palimpsest - 23 Jan 2008
Internet search services provider Google, Inc., US, is reportedly set to offer an online storage facility to scientists. It is expected that the domain will provide a home for terabytes of open source scientific datasets. Called Palimpsest, the initiative was first revealed at the Science Foo camp in August 2007, jointly organised by Google and publishing firm O’Reilly.
The new service will reportedly have annotating and commenting features along the line of YouTube. It is projected to fill a major need for scientists who want to openly share their data and allow citizen scientists access to an unprecedented amount of data to explore.
The tool, developed in Sweden, was acquired by Google in March 2007 for an undisclosed sum. Building on its purchase of data visualisation technology Trendalyzer, Google will also offer algorithms for the probing and examination of data stored in the facility. Trendalyzer presents data in an easily accessible, graphic format, which makes it easier for organisations to show data in a consistent and user-friendly manner. Source: “Knowledgespeak Newsletter” Jan. 23, 2008
“Google Research” home is here: http://research.google.com/
Continue reading "Google offering online storage for scientific data via Palimpsest" »
Growing Buildings — the text:
A team of college students is making window material, sturdy enough to cover the side of an office building, out of stuff grown in a field. 01/20/2008 Randy Atkins: Buildings use up about forty percent of both U.S. energy and landfill space. So a University of Michigan team, led by engineering professor Harry Giles, is making new materials.
Harry Giles: We see a future where our buildings come from sources that are grown rather than materials that are dug out of the ground where we have limited sources.
Randy Atkins: They’re strategically positioning thin wafers of material like bamboo or wheat between plastic. The result, Giles says, is extra strong windows that block light in the summer while letting it in, at just the right angle, in the winter.
Harry Giles: We don’t have to mechanically open and close blinds all the time to control lighting.
Randy Atkins: And all the parts can be recycled. With the National Academy of Engineering, Randy Atkins, WTOP Radio
Listen to the 42 second podcast.
The P3 Award from the Environmental Protection Agency
The University of Michigan student project for P3, Growing Alternative Sustainable Buildings
More new engineering uses for natural fibers
The National Academy of Engineering announced the grand challenges for engineering in the 21st century. A diverse committee of experts from around the world, convened at the request of the U.S. National Science Foundation, revealed 14 challenges that, if met, would improve how we live.
Continue reading "14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century" »
February 20 — In conjunction with National Engineers Week, the National Academy of Engineering and a coalition of engineering and educational organizations announced today the launch of “Engineer Your Life,” a new Web site to encourage academically prepared girls to enroll in undergraduate engineering programs. The site is part of a national effort to tell high school girls, and the adults in their lives, about what it is like to be an engineer.
From today’s What’s new@national-academies.org
The Princeton Writing Program is offering 6 sections of two non-credit, 6-week courses in Writing in Science and Engineering (WSE). Space is limited and enrollment is by application only. The courses are sponsored by the Graduate School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS). The application deadlines are in advance of the beginning of each course. For more information visit http://www.princeton.edu/writing/WSE/.
“Under the initiative, CAS (Chemical Abstracts Service) will work with Wikipedia to help provide accurate CAS Registry Numbers for current substances listed in Wikiprojects - Chemicals section of the Wikipedia Chemistry Portal - that are of widespread general public interest. The CAS Registry is one the most comprehensive collections of chemical substances and the CAS Registry Number is the recognised global standard for chemical substance identification.”
From Knowledgespeak Newsletter, March 18.
March 14 — The National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering held a summit on March 13 and 14 to examine the increasing importance of energy policy to the nation’s security, economic vitality, and environment. U.S. government officials and other leading experts delivered a series of presentations that will inform the upcoming study —
America’s Energy Future: Technology Opportunities, Risks, and Tradeoffs.
Summit Agenda and Presentations
America’s Energy Future Project
What You Need to Know About Energy booklet
Source: What’s New@National-Academies.org Friday, March 21.
FierceBioresearcher is a free weekly newsletter that provides alerts of very interesting research that is going on in the PHARMA industry. There are usually links to articles and reports. Occasionally there are conference notices, and announcements of industry reports, e.g.: “The BioWorld Diabetes Report 2008: Developments and Opportunities in Drugs and Devices”.
“FierceBioResearcher gives you the must-know scientific breakthroughs, tools, techniques and news about the biotech research industry. Critical areas covered include drug discovery and development, preclinical research, nanotechnology, genomic research, bioinformatics, and stem cell research. Sign up today to receive your “insiders only” weekly briefing for free.”
Topics Covered — from their website:
Drug Discovery Preclinical Research Pharmacology Genomics Proteomics Cell Biology Molecular Biology Tissue Culture Cell Culture GCP / GLP / GMP Lab Equipment
120 new volumes have been added to Knovel. Here are 4 from the category of Electrical and Power and Engineering:
One of Knovel’s most popular titles, this 2nd edition of Knovel Critical Tables has been updated and enhanced with over 40 new interactive tables. A total of more than 16,000 new records have been added.
New tables have been introduced in areas including:
Electrical Properties Thermal Expansion Transport and Flow Density and Compressibility Vaporization and Vapor Pressure Reaction, Thermodynamics and Equilibrium
To see the Spring 2008 newsletter and get tips and demos, visit:
http://www.info.knovel.com//knews/KNewsSpring20080502.html
It includes an example of a “fielded” search for the tensile and compressive properties of materials — of which it contains thousands.
“EnergyCurrent.com redesigns website
EnergyCurrent.com has redesigned its website and released several new features in advance of the 2008 Offshore Technology Conference. EnergyCurrent.com is a publisher of upstream energy business news focused on offshore petroleum and emerging and alternative energy resources.
The new site design gives readers around the world better access to expansive coverage of the upstream energy sector. The redesigned site features significant improvements in overall readability and navigation, allowing readers to more easily drill down to the news that is important for them. New features include an events calendar, industry links, a translation tool powered by Google and the EnergyWiki.
EnergyCurrent.com is projected as a one-stop resource for the latest news on the rapidly growing upstream energy business segments of Offshore Oil and Gas and Emerging and Alternative Energy resources. With more than 10,000 stores published to date, coverage focuses on global offshore exploration and production of oil and gas, field development and construction, the global LNG industry and renewable energy resources such as wind energy, wave energy, solar power, and bio-fuels. EnergyCurrent.com is free to read online and offers a free daily email digest recapping the previous day’s stories, an events calendar and a free business encyclopedia, EnergyWiki.”
Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter, May 7, 2008
“SAE International wins National Science Foundation Award - 12 May 2008
The US’ National Science Foundation has awarded SAE International and Bayer Corporation with the 2008 Public Service Award. Both organisations were recognised for their work to increase the public’s understanding of science and engineering.
In particular, SAE was honored for its A World In Motion (AWIM) (www.awim.org) curriculum and Collegiate Design Series (http://students.sae.org/competitions/). AWIM joins together teachers, students, (elementary through high school) and industry volunteers in an exploration of physical science while addressing essential mathematic and scientific concepts and skills. SAE’s Collegiate Design Series is a series of competitions that provides college students with real-world, hands-on engineering experience by designing, building and testing the performance of real vehicles.
The award presentation took place during a black-tie dinner at the U.S. Department of State on May 6. The presentation was attended by SAE 2008 President Dr. Thomas W. Ryan III, PhD, and SAE International Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Dr. David L. Schutt, PhD.”
Source: Knowledgespeak Newsletter, May 12, 2008
All Engineering Library books can now be renewed online. Please submit requests for book renewals through the online form available on the Engineering Library website (under Services) and on the Princeton University Library website (under Circulation).
Jay Harman has made a long-term study of fluid flows: The biology and physics of vortexes reveal promise of efficiencies in energy and natural systems. Pax Scientific, the company he founded, now has 5 spin-off companies, one being PaxIT absorbed with designing quieter more efficient computer fans.
The article also cites examples of the slowness with which promising inventions get adopted — even in the computer or information technology industries. Read the article in the