In June 1999, Wright State became the first university in the Dayton area to offer an undergraduate degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering. Industrial Engineering is already the fifth largest engineering major in the United States, and enrollments continue to increase nationally. With the large industrial base in the Dayton area, Industrial Engineering at Wright State is a natural fit.

Industrial engineers (IEs) determine the best way to do things from assembling cars to searching the Internet. They engineer processes and systems that improve quality and productivity. Industrial engineers make significant contributions by saving their employers money while, at the same time, making the workplace a better, healthier place to be. The most distinctive aspect of industrial engineering is the flexibility that it offers. It provides an opportunity to work in a variety of businesses, solving a wide range of problems. Manufacturing firms and service industries hire a ignificant number of IEs, while modern businesses need IEs in areas like sales and marketing, finance, information systems, and personnel. Corporations as diverse as Coca Cola, UPS, Disney, IBM, Levi Strauss, Nike, The Gap, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, and Boeing all use industrial engineers to accomplish a variety of creative tasks. The same is true for other industries, such as hospitals, airlines, banks, railroads, and social services.

The Industrial Engineering degree at WSU is about choices. Based on input from students, alumni, and employers, the ISE curriculum was developed to provide the student with the depth and breadth necessary for the workplace of tomorrow. Students obtain core knowledge in all aspects of Industrial Engineering and then have the opportunity to develop a focus area through their five elective courses. Current focus area tracks include human integrated systems, computer and information systems, operations management, and undergraduate honors thesis. Students completing the computer and information systems track can apply for the minor in Computer Science for Scientists and Engineers. Those completing the operations management track are eligible for the Operations Management minor offered through the College of Business and Administration. In the recently updated Jobs Rated Almanac, Industrial Engineering ranked the highest as the most desirable profession of all major engineering areas.

For further information about opportunities in the new Industrial and Systems Engineering degree program at Wright State University, please contact Dr. Rick Koubek, Chair, Department of Biomedical, Industrial, and Human Factors Engineering by e-mail at rkoubek@cs.wright.edu, or stop by 207 Russ Engineering Center.

The Biomedical Imaging Laboratory of Wright State University and Miami Valley Hospital, under the directorship of Thomas N. Hangartner, Ph.D., Department of Biomedical, Industrial, and Human Factors Engineering, has been selected to provide training for a special radiologic procedure. This training procedure is sponsored by Proctor & Gamble Pharmaceuticals of Cincinnati in conjunction with a large multi-center study.

In September and October, radiologic technologists from all over the U.S. and Canada will come to Dayton to attend a week-long training session. The technologists will be trained on a procedure which consists of a special radiograph of the knee that needs to be taken after the knee has been positioned with the help of a fluoroscopic device. This elaborate positioning procedure allows reproducible evaluation of the joint space of the knee with the help of special image processing software. The procedure will be applied to hundreds of patients throughout the country participating in a research study to evaluate a new treatment for osteoarthritis.

In order to minimize errors generated by x-ray equipment, the equipment to be used by the various technologists at their home institutions needs to be evaluated and certified. In order to evaluate the equipment, Dr. Hangartner developed a special phantom that is measured by each of the potential instruments. This phantom is able to measure geometric distortion, geometric resolution, range of exposure, and sensitivity to small objects of small density difference.

The phantom was built to exacting specifications in order to provide the expected assessments. The master craftsmen of the WSU Instrument Shop, John Lawless and Wayne Massey, built three copies of the phantom. One phantom has traveled to all the prospective research sites in the U.S., the second has traveled to all the prospective research sites in Europe. All radiographic images taken with the phantoms are being sent back to Dayton for analysis and certification of the radiographic equipment.

Anyone interested in learning more about this research or the radiologic training should contact Dr. Thomas N. Hangartner; Department of Biomedical, Industrial, and Systems Engineering; 775-5044 (at WSU) or 208-2257 (at Miami Valley Hospital).

On Friday, September 17, freshman engineering and computer science students competed in a model bridge building competition as part of EGR 199—Introduction to the Art of Engineering. This course provides hands-on projects; real, virtual, and remote laboratory experiments; computer simulations; and the opportunity to practice the art of engineering design.

Teams consisting of four students began designing and building their bridges before classes began. Each team received a box containing the same type and number of colorful K’NEX plastic parts which are available at local toy stores. Each team followed the same rules for building the bridges which had to have a span of at least 40 inches.

During the competition, bridges which met the established criteria were subjected to an increasing load until it collapsed. This maximum load divided by the weight of the bridge determined the "strength to weight" ratio of each bridge. The bridge with the largest ratio was the winner of the competition.

This is the second year for EGR 199 and the Bridge Busting Competition. Apparently, the students did their homework because, on average, the bridges were much more durable this year.

If you missed the first seminar for Fall Quarter, "Efficient Mining of Emerging Patterns: Discovering Trends and Differences," by Dr. Guozhu Dong, CSE, you can catch the next one, "Mining Association Rules in Text Databases," by CSE Ph.D. candidate John Holt of Lexis Nexis. The seminar will be held on October 8, 1999 in 145 Russ from 11:00 to noon. On October 22, 1999, Dr. Francis Quek, CSE, will present "A Comprehensive Approach to Human Communication using Gesture, Speech, and Gaze." On November 5, 1999, CSE Ph.D. candidate Yadong Li will speak on "Tracking Human Faces in Videos." All the seminars will be held in 145 Russ from 11:00 a.m. until Noon.

ITRI sponsored a one-day workshop September 9, 1999, on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining. Opening speaker Ken O’Flaherty from NCR San Diego provided a survey on the field of knowledge discovery and data mining. Next, Computer Science faculty members Drs. Soon Chung, Guozhu Dong, Philip Chen, Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna, and Ardeshir Goshtasby followed with presentations on special topics in knowledge discovery and data mining.

In the afternoon session, Mr. John Holt of Lexis-Nexis, Dr. Soon Chung, Mr. Ron O’Rear from SAIC, Mr. Ron Crompton of Intelligent Algorithms and Dr. Bruce Berra, ITRI Director, presented on applications of knowledge discovery and data mining. The closing session was a panel composed of Drs. Dong, P. Chen, and Goshtasby presenting the academic view and Mr. O’ Flaherty, Mr. Crompton and Mr. Jim Lance from Elder- Beerman representing the industrial view. The five most important problems in knowledge discovery and data mining were explored. Over 60 people from local and state Universities, industry, government, and military attended.

The hallways of the Russ Center in classroom, study lounge, and vending machine areas were painted just before the start of Fall Quarter. Please help keep these areas clean by adhering to the following requests.

Do not put your hands or feet on the walls.

Do not post items on walls, doors, or door frames.

Do see Teri Shepherd, Dean’s Office, Room 405, to post announcements in the lobby.

Do get a holder for your lab or office door if you expect to have numerous announcements or schedules to display. (To see the type of holder we prefer be used, check the Periodical Reading Room door, Room 404.)

Do post anouncements for clubs and student organizations in the glass cases outside the Club Room.

Dr. Harvey’s professional experience includes seven years active duty in the United States Air Force (USAF) as a facility engineer. He also served as a software development engineer for the Air Force’s facility engineering information systems. Today, Dr. Harvey still serves in the USAF Reserves (Major, USAFR) and is responsible for the design evaluation of supporting information technologies and business process improvement for facility engineers. Upon leaving USAF active duty, Dr. Harvey was responsible for reengineering at the Student Loan Marketing Association (SallieMae) and later was a consultant with KnowledgeWare.

Dr. Harvey’s primary research area is on collaboration and advanced systems for humans. This research focuses on the human aspects of collaboration in the accomplishment of complex tasks. Previous work has looked at distributed communication media (e.g., video and voice conferencing) and computer sharing tools in the support of collaborative engineering. In addition he is interested in the human aspects of maintenance engineering.

Dr. Haider Ali Ramadhan is a visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Dr. Ramadhan is from Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, a nation in the Arabian Peninsula. He is spending his sabbatical at Wright State and will be with us until August 2000.

Dr. Ramadhan received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in computer science from the University of North Carolina and his Ph.D. in computer science & AI from the University of Sussex, United Kingdon. His research interests include intelligent programming systems, knowledge representation, software visuali-zation and program animation, HCI, intelligent user interfaces, development of software environments, and alternate programming paradigms such as natural programming and programming by discovery.

Dr. Ramadhan is actively involved in collaborative research projects with the AI group at the University of Sussex, the HCI group at CMU, the AI group at NJIT, and the visualization group at Oregan State University. The product of this collaborative research effort has appeared in numerous journal and conference papers. Dr. Ramadhan chaired several technical sessions at international conferences and he will be the General Chairman of the ACM International Conference (already being announced in the ACM publications) on Computer Arabization and Pattern Recognition to be held in Oman in March 2001.

Dr. Ramadhan was the Director of the Sultan Qaboos University Computer Center for four years and is currently the Chair of the Department of Computer Science at the College of Science. In addition to being a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Science and Technology, he was a member of the Program Committee for the International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IC-AIí99), (Las Vegas, July, 1999), and received the prize for the outstanding paper at the ACM COMPSAC'92.

The Society of Women Engineers is seeking nominations for seven prestigious awards. Award recipients will be recognized at the Society of Women Engineers annual national conference in Washington, DC, on June 27-July 1, 2000. They will also be featured in SWE Magazine, a national publication, as well as press releases to various related publications.

Please identify and nominate can-didates from your school, business, professional societies, and technical field for the following awards:

Achievement Award–for contribution to the field of engineering over a significant time period.

Upward Mobility Award–for contribution in engineering or technical management.

Resnik Challenger Medal (in memory of Dr. Judith A. Resnik, NASA Astronaut)–for engineering contributions which broaden the frontiers of space exploration.

Rodney D. Chipp Memorial Award–to recognize a man or company that has contributed significantly to the acceptance and advancement of women in the engineering field.

Distinguished Engineering Educator Award–for a SWE member who has demonstrated excellence in teaching.

Distinguished New Engineer Award–for SWE members with less than 10 years experience who are actively engaged in engineering and have demonstrated outstanding technical performance.

Fellow Grade–for SWE members who have advanced the public’s awareness of engineering as a profession for women.

Welcome back College of Engineering and Computer Science faculty, staff, and students for the 1999-2000 school year. I hope everyone will have a successful and enjoyable year.

Student Government (SG), under the leadership of Liz Conzo and Eric Schweser, have proposed several major issues they would like to initiate and/or accomplish this year for the betterment of Wright State University's student body. The first set of goals involves student satisfaction. "Operation: Hi, How Are You?" would involve random students evaluating WSU employees who service the students in departments such as the Bursars Office and Financial Aid office. SG will also work with Faculty Senate to devise a plan for publication of faculty evaluations, possibly on the SG web page.

Other SG issues for 99/00 include the Timeline Program, Field Day, Brown Bag Lunches, and Athletic Attendance Plan. For the timeline program, SG aims to keep current students informed and updated on changes and construction by compiling and publicizing timelines that illustrate the changes. SG is also coordinating a small field day of 2-5 events in which students, faculty, and staff compete.

Another new program is Brown Bag Lunches. This program, which will hopefully begin Winter 2000, would invite randomly selected to students to meet on campus with student leaders, faculty, and administrators. A forum such as this is an excellent method to discover issues/problems early and communicate effectively with students. In the Athletic Attendance Action Plan, SG will be working with the Student Athletic Council to encourage/coordinate events such as spirit contests and athletic dialogues to help increase athletic turnout.

Now that you know SG plans for this year, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Beth and I am a second year biomedical engineering major. Last year I participated in Society of Women Engineers, Wright Engineer-ing Council, and Wright Outdoors Etc. This year I will be your student government representative. But what does that mean?

It means I was elected to represent YOU. I will be representing the voice of the CECS student body to the university as a whole, but I can't do it with out your help. I need to hear your questions, comments, or concerns regarding Wright State University and the CECS.

Feel free to stop me on campus, E-mail me at wirick.2@wright.edu, or check the student government (SG) information board outside 163 Russ.

Important Dates To Remember . . .