UC Davis News: Engineering

UC Davis plans 13 commencements, will graduate first nursing students

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:25:00 -0700

Thousands of students from the University of California, Davis, will participate in 13 commencement ceremonies this spring, including the first class from the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Commencement season begins Thursday, May 17, and concludes Sunday, June 17.

Guest speakers will include:

Goodwin Liu, an associate justice of the California Supreme Court, at the commencement for the School of Law on May 17;
Marie V. McDemmond, president emeritus of Norfolk State University in Virginia, at the commencement for the School of Education on June 13;
James C. Davis, president of Chevron Energy Solutions, at the commencement for the Graduate School of Management on June 16; and
Secretary General Chris Buijink of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation for the Netherlands, at the commencements for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences on June 17.

For more about speakers, visit: http://commencement.ucdavis.edu/speakers.html.

Commencement dates, times and locations are as follows:

May 17 — School of Law at 2 p.m. at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts;
May 19 — School of Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 13 — School of Education at 4 p.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 14 — Graduate Studies at 4 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 15 — College of Biological Sciences at 9 a.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 15 — School of Veterinary Medicine at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center;
June 15 — College of Engineering at 3 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 16 — College of Letters and Science at 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion;
June 16 — Graduate School of Management at 10 a.m. at the Mondavi Center; and
June 17 — College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the ARC Pavilion.

In addition, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing will hold a special celebration of its first graduates at 12:30 p.m. on June 14 at the UC Davis Conference Center, before students participate in the Graduate Studies commencement. About 25 nursing students are candidates for a Master of Science degree.

Established in 2009, the nursing school admitted the first students to its master’s and Doctor of Philosophy programs in fall 2010. The school focuses on preparing graduates as educators, researchers and leaders to promote health, advance quality of care and safety, and shape policy.

The School of Law will award 23 Master of Laws and 202 Juris Doctor degrees at its ceremony, and the School of Medicine will award 108 Doctor of Medicine, four Master of Health Informatics and 24 Master of Public Health degrees.

Estimates of degrees to be awarded at the other ceremonies will be available in June. In 2010-11, UC Davis conferred 8,350 degrees.

Tickets are required for all commencement ceremonies except Graduate Studies, and they are distributed to graduating students by individual schools and colleges.

UC Davis will offer live and on-demand webcasts of each of the commencements at http://commencementvideo.ucdavis.edu/.

Campus tech incubator graduates first tenant

Tue, 08 May 2012 09:16:00 -0700

Hear this: Dysonics, a startup based on audio technology research conducted at the University of California, Davis, is the first company to "graduate" from the UC Davis College of Engineering's fledgling high-tech business incubator, the Engineering Translational Technology Center, also known as ETTC. After less than a year of incubation, Dysonics secured $750,000 in funding from angel investors, enough to set out on its own.

“We are very pleased to see Dysonics, our first ‘graduate,’ exit with a solid financing round under its belt,” said Harris Lewin, vice chancellor of research at UC Davis. “We are proud of the pioneering research conducted by Professor Ralph Algazi and his colleagues in the College of Engineering that made this successful spin-off possible,” he added. “UC Davis has a long track record of translating cutting-edge research into technologies with strong commercial potential, and we expect to see many more such new ventures being formed from the quality research being pursued by our faculty.”

The Engineering Translational Technology Center was established in 2010 to help technology startups, based on intellectual property developed at UC Davis, attract support from external financial investors. The ETTC provides member companies with campus space close to the college’s laboratories as well as support, mentorship and introductions to potential investors and strategic partners.

Members are selected for admission into the business incubator through a review process that includes an assessment of the commercial potential of the faculty research and its readiness for commercial development.

“Within the incubator, professors can stay close to their research and teaching while they develop their ideas, and students can get experience in translational technology research," said Bruce White, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, director of the ETTC and former dean of the College of Engineering. “The center identifies and nurtures promising research in the college, then supports faculty in the early stages of turning their academic research into commercial products.”

Dysonics was founded in 2011 by Algazi of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Robert Dalton Jr., an alumnus with a master's degree in engineering from UC Davis, and Richard Duda, a former research scientist at UC Davis.

The company, which has relocated its headquarters to San Francisco, is developing products for reproducing three-dimensional, immersive sound over headphones. The technology is based on UC Davis patents stemming from years of work conducted in Algazi's laboratory at UC Davis.

“The experience of hearing sound involves more than reproducing some acoustic vibrations at their source," Algazi said. “The shape of the head and ears, motion of the listener, and the acoustics of the room all play a role in the experience.” Algazi's research has explored how to capture and reproduce these nuances, for a more realistic, immersive listening experience.

Dysonics plans to market its technology initially to mobile device users seeking a richer, more engaging listening experience and new ways to interact with their content on their devices. Companies can also use the Dysonics technology for better audio quality for existing media and to develop new audio products and services.

Two other companies are currently being nurtured in the incubator. These are PutahGreen Systems, which makes software to dramatically reduce the energy needed to run networks by consolidating data traffic at less busy times, and Inserogen, which aims to grow vaccines for animal and human diseases in tobacco plants. Several other campus startups are being evaluated for potential admission into the ETTC.

The ETTC is one of several initiatives being undertaken at UC Davis that are designed to foster entrepreneurial activities and translational research on campus and facilitate effective technology transfer and new company creation as a means of achieving the university’s mission of service to people and society. Since 2004, more than 40 new companies have been spun off from UC Davis research. The university held 375 active patents at the end of the 2011 fiscal year.

Lighting innovator assumes first Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency

Thu, 03 May 2012 08:50:00 -0700

Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center, has been named the first Arthur H. Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency at the University of California, Davis.

The designation honors both Siminovitch, a professor of design whose work is revolutionizing lighting throughout California, and Rosenfeld, considered the “father of energy efficiency.”

“I am absolutely delighted that Michael has received this recognition,” said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, which encompasses the Department of Design. “He is a visionary leader and the perfect person to inaugurate this chair.”

Siminovitch has directed the CLTC since it was established in 2003, under the UC Davis Department of Design. It has since become one of the most respected lighting research centers in the United States. Working with industry partners, utilities, government agencies, and others, CLTC is dedicated to advancing energy-efficient lighting and daylighting design.

High-efficiency lighting developed at CLTC now illuminates buildings statewide, as well as UC Davis parking lots and garages, the Richmond Department of Public Health and other state agencies, higher education campuses outside UC Davis, such as California State University-Long Beach, and Raley’s supermarkets.

The lighting retrofits at UC Davis are part of the university’s Smart Lighting Initiative co-developed by Siminovitch to reduce the campus’s electricity use for lighting by 60 percent by the end of 2015. When the initiative is complete, the campus is expected to reduce its carbon footprint by about 10,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent and save an estimated $3 million each year. The CLTC also advised developers of UC Davis West Village, the nation’s largest planned zero net energy community.

CLTC is part of the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center, of which Rosenfeld is a founding advisory board member. Rosenfeld is currently a professor emeritus of physics at UC Berkeley, co-founder and former director of the Center for Building Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and retired California Energy Commissioner.

“We’re thrilled to recognize both Art Rosenfeld and Michael Siminovitch — two extraordinary people who are doing good things for California and the world,” said Nicole Biggart, Chevron Chair in Energy Efficiency, director of the Energy Efficiency Center, and professor in the Graduate School of Management.

In the 1970s, Rosenfeld was one of the first in the nation to propose that conserving energy was cheaper and smarter than building new power plants and finding more nonrenewable energy sources. His contributions to energy efficiency are so profound that a new unit to describe energy saved — the Rosenfeld — was named after him in 2010.

While working as a student researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Siminovitch was mentored by Rosenfeld, whose ideas left a deep impression on him.

“He was an enthusiastic champion of this thing called energy efficiency,” said Siminovitch, recalling those early years. “At the time, he was one of the few in the country linking technology, design and human behavior all together with energy efficiency. The California Lighting Technology Center is based on those cornerstones, which I learned from him.”

Like Rosenfeld, Siminovitch is intent on using science and design to make an impact. In addition to teaching the next generation of lighting designers and helping to develop new energy-efficient technologies, he has helped to shape public policy in California. He often advises regulatory agencies, manufacturers and architects, all with a focus on bringing energy efficient technologies to the public. His efforts to make adaptive lighting a standard in building design helped shape changes to Title 24 codes and standards.

“The Rosenfeld Chair is about the can-do culture of UC Davis and the California Lighting Technology Center — a culture of innovation and cooperation,” Siminovitch said. “We’re creating real change and moving ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace by working collaboratively with industry.”

The new chair was endowed by more than 70 individuals and organizations. Major donors include Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Sempra Energy, Southern California Edison, the California Clean Energy Fund, Chevron, ClimateWorks Foundation, Exelon Corporation, Goldman Sachs, Power Integrations Inc., and Wendy and Eric Schmidt. A full list of donors is online at: http://eec.ucdavis.edu/events/rosenfeld_donors.php.

The endowment will help the chair holder promote the EEC’s mission to develop and commercialize energy-efficient technologies, teach future leaders in energy efficiency, and conduct critical policy-supporting research.

Siminovitch is a graduate of Carleton University in Canada and received his master’s degrees in both industrial design and architecture from the University of Illinois. He earned his doctorate degree in architecture and human factors engineering from the University of Michigan.

Expert sources on Calif. governor’s new green-building order

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:00:00 -0700

The following UC Davis experts are available to talk about the bold targets outlined in the governor’s green building order issued April 25. The executive order (B-18-12) aims to ensure that state facilities waste less energy on lighting, water, air-conditioning and heating.

UC Davis leadership in California energy savings

Nicole Woolsey Biggart, director of the UC Davis Energy Efficiency Center, holder of the Chevron Chair in Energy Efficiency, and professor at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management, is an expert in organizational theory and management of innovation, and can discuss the barriers to implementation of energy efficient technologies in the commercial building industry. The Energy Efficiency Center works with inventors, utilities and investors to propel promising energy efficiency solutions to the market, with a focus on lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and water use and transport. Contact: Nicole Woolsey Biggart, Energy Efficiency Center, (530) 304-5052, nwbiggart@ucdavis.edu.

How to slash lighting energy use

When the California Public Utilities Commission called for a 60 to 80 percent statewide reduction in electrical lighting consumption by 2020, UC Davis was the first large institution in the state to act. Guided by UC Davis’ California Lighting Technology Center, campus administrators began a Smart Lighting Initiative to reduce the campus's electricity use for all lighting by 60 percent by the end of 2015. Already, some campus facilities have achieved greater than 70 percent savings with the latest technologies. Contact: Michael Siminovitch, CLTC, (530) 747-3835, mjsiminovitch@ucdavis.edu. Also reach Siminovitch through Kelly Cunningham, CLTC outreach director, (530) 747-3824, kcunning@ucdavis.edu.

How California purchasing power can drive change

“The governor’s new executive order provides an opportunity for the state to further demonstrate leadership by using its purchasing power to drive innovation and adoption of efficiency technologies and strategies,” said Anthony Eggert, executive director of the new UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy. Before Eggert came to UC Davis in January, he advised Gov. Brown on clean energy and efficiency policy. Contact: Anthony Eggert, UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy, (530) 752-1083, areggert@ucdavis.edu. (Traveling in China until April 29; use e-mail, expect delay.)

Curbing lighting’s big energy appetite

Lighting accounts for nearly 30 percent of California's electricity use. Due to continued use of inefficient lighting, much of this energy is wasted. The California Public Utilities Commission has called for a 60 to 80 percent statewide reduction in electrical lighting consumption by 2020. The California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis works closely with state agencies, manufacturing partners, and the research community to add new requirements in the pending state building code. “Upgrades for state facilities represent a significant opportunity to achieve our energy efficiency goals, provide green jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide,” said Michael Siminovitch, director of the California Lighting Technology Center and holder of the UC Davis Rosenfeld Chair in Energy Efficiency. Contact: Michael Siminovitch, CLTC, (530) 747-3835, mjsiminovitch@ucdavis.edu. Also reach Siminovitch through Kelly Cunningham, CLTC outreach director, (530) 747-3824, kcunning@ucdavis.edu.

Making rooms comfortable with less energy

Energy-efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning/cooling (HVAC) is the mission of UC Davis’ Western Cooling Efficiency Center. The center is supported by the California Energy Commission, as well as industry affiliates including utilities, manufacturers and contractors. Its research has changed California Title 24 policy to make rooftop packaged cooling units more efficient. The center has also installed and evaluated energy-saving strategies for the CEC’s Public Interest Energy Research program, such as “demand control” kitchen ventilation. Western Cooling Efficiency Center director Mark Modera developed Aeroseal, for sealing HVAC ducts in homes, recently named the “best home improvement” product by This Old House Magazine and currently under study in a Stockton home. Modera holds the UC Davis Sempra Energy Chair in Energy Efficiency. Contact: Mark Modera, Western Cooling Efficiency Center, (530) 754-7671, mpmodera@ucdavis.edu.

Less energy to use and move water

Almost 20 percent of electricity used in California is spent moving, using and treating water. Frank Loge, director of the UC Davis Center for Water-Energy Efficiency said, "Public policy and business practice have treated water and energy as separate resources, but they are inexorably linked.” The center’s researchers have worked with the UC Davis Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship to commercialize water- and energy-conservation technologies, such as a system to convert wastewater into biodegradable plastic (being developed by Micromidas in West Sacramento). Center researchers have also begun work on a statewide strategic plan for water-energy conservation. Loge is a professor of civil and environmental engineering. Contact: Frank Loge, Center for Water-Energy Efficiency, (530) 754-2297, fjloge@ucdavis.edu.http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10221&preview=yes

C-STEM Day conference, robot competition promotes robotics in teaching

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:25:00 -0700

(Read about a synopsis of the event, including the awards ceremony for students and teachers.)

Middle and high school students will show their skills in robotics and problem-solving while teachers, educators, researchers and policymakers discuss how to use computing, technology, engineering and robotics in K-14 education at the second annual UC Davis C-STEM Day, Saturday, May 5.

"Robotics is an interdisciplinary field and working with robots can really get students excited about computing and STEM," said Harry Cheng, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, using the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Cheng is director of the UC Davis K-14 Outreach Center for Computing and STEM Education, or C-STEM. With the support of the National Science Foundation, the center is working on several key issues: How can STEM learning help close the achievement gap for minority students and promote success for all students; How will STEM learning change school environments, curriculum, instructional and assessment practices; and how will a focus on STEM learning impact teacher preparation and professional development?

C-STEM Day runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. with most events taking place in the UC Davis Conference Center. During the morning, there will be a conference on the theme of integrating technology and engineering into math and science education, with a keynote speech by UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, herself an engineer by training. Panel discussions will cover teaching algebra, math, computing and technology; closing the achievement gap; and professional development for pre-service and in-service STEM teachers.

Among those taking part will be Deputy Director Michael Hardwick of Sandia National Laboratories; Winfred Robinson, superintendent of the Davis Joint Unified School District; Timothy Taylor, assistant superintendent of the Sacramento County Office of Education; and Matthew Perry, director of High School Reform Initiatives for the Sacramento City Unified School District.

At the same time, K-12 students from regional schools will be working on the RoboPlay Robot Challenge. The challenge lets students showcase their real-world problem solving skills in a competitive environment. The teams will be presented with a problem at a remote location such as a space station or planetary habitat, where they have to quickly develop and deploy a robotic solution using only existing resources. The specific challenge will be kept secret until the day of the competition.

In the afternoon, the students will present their results from the Robot Challenge Competition, as well as videos from a "RoboPlay Robot Dance" and “Robot Show” that they have been working on over the preceding weeks and other robotics demonstrations. The day will end with an awards ceremony.

A number of schools from across the greater Sacramento region, including Westmore Oaks Elementary, Bridgeway Island Elementary, and River City High School in West Sacramento, Harper Junior High in Davis, Einstein Education Center in Woodland, and Hiram Johnson High in Sacramento, are working with Cheng's center to implement programs that teach algebra and computer programming, using the modular robot "Mobot" invented in Cheng's laboratory at UC Davis.

The center's RoboPlay competitions are open-ended design challenges that integrate computer programming and math with elements of writing, art, music, choreography, design and filmmaking. Middle and high school students write computer programs to create robot dances and robot shows as well as complete challenges using the Mobot.

The center also offers summer programs and fellowships for STEM teachers to get experience in computing and robotics research that can be applied in their teaching.

A single Mobot module has wheels at each end and two hinges in the center. An individual module can drive on its wheels, crawl or raise one end of its body and pan around. Modules can be connected together to make wheeled vehicles, "snakes", "gorilla," humanoid or other shapes with different applications. Each module is fully programmable and can be controlled simultaneously, making it extremely versatile for a wide range of exercises.

As well as figuring out how to program the robots for different applications, students can design new parts and accessories for the robots and prototype them with three-dimensional printers.

Watch another video featuring the Mobots, Mobots in the Forest.

C-STEM Day is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the UC Davis College of Engineering and University Outreach and International Programs.

To register for the conference or for full program details, please visit http://c-stem.ucdavis.edu/activities/conference/. Attendance is free, but advance registration by May 1 is required.

Researcher's waste-to-energy technology moves from the lab to the marketplace

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0700

Technology invented by a University of California, Davis, researcher that converts solid waste into renewable energy is debuting today as the first commercially available, high-solid anaerobic digestion system in the United States.

Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering, has been working on her anaerobic digester technology for the past decade, bringing it from the laboratory to the pilot stage in 2006. When Clean World Partners, a Sacramento-based startup that licensed the technology from UC Davis, unveils the biodigester today at a Sacramento, Calif., packaging company, it will mark the first time her research has reached the market.

“I applaud Professor Zhang for this tremendous accomplishment," said UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. "Scientists like Professor Zhang are helping UC Davis address the most pressing global problems of our time. Her work brings us a giant step closer to the sustainable future we all hope for.”

The anaerobic digestion system is located at American River Packaging. It will convert 7.5 tons per day of food waste from regional food producers, including Campbell’s Soup Company, and a half ton each day of unrecyclable corrugated material from ARP into natural gas. The system will generate roughly 1,300 kWh of renewable energy per day, meeting about 37 percent of ARP’s electricity needs and preventing an estimated 2,900 tons of waste from entering landfills each year. The project has created about 22 jobs.

“This kind of project and technology is actually changing how societies treat and view waste as a resource, which, overall, leads to a better world, a cleaner environment and new jobs,” said Zhang.

Anaerobic digestion relies on bacteria to break down biodegradable waste material in the absence of oxygen. Zhang’s system turns that waste into such valuable byproducts as renewable energy, compost, water, and natural fertilizer. While anaerobic digestion is not a new technology in itself, operational and material-handling limitations had prevented its commercial adoption.

Unlike most other digesters that primarily treat liquid waste, such as manure from dairy farms and municipal wastewater, Zhang’s high-rate digester technology can convert both liquid and solid waste, including food waste, yard waste, plant residues, paper and cardboard.

Zhang also sought to overcome two key barriers to the widespread use of anaerobic digesters: time and money. The new technology makes such waste conversion systems replicable, with many components prefabricated, reducing the time it takes to build them. For example, the Clean World Partners system at ARP went from bare ground to energy production within 90 days and cost about $2 million to $3 million.

Zhang’s system also turns waste into energy in half the time of other digesters and produces more gases that can be turned into clean energy. These efficiency improvements are expected to drive down cost and maximize the amount of energy produced and the volume of waste diverted from the landfill.

Clean World Partners formed in 2009 to commercialize Zhang’s anaerobic digestion technology and bring it to a wider market. The company plans to open a second waste conversion facility using Zhang’s technology at Sacramento County’s south area transfer station in June.

“Ruihong’s contributions continue to be critical to our success as a key adviser,” said Clean World Partners CEO Michele Wong, a UC Davis alumna. “We are proud to work with UC Davis and Ruihong to commercialize these technologies.”

The anaerobic digestion facility was first developed and tested as a pilot plant at UC Davis. The university is currently working with Clean World Partners to bring a full-scale biodigester to campus. Though still in the planning stages, that biodigester is expected to help UC Davis West Village, the nation’s largest planned zero-net-energy community achieve its goal of generating as much power as it consumes in the course of a year.

Major public funding for Zhang’s biodigester research came from the Department of Energy’s Community Renewable Energy Development project, the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research program, and CalRecycle.

Modular robots win NSF funding

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 10:15:00 -0700

A robotics company started by a UC Davis engineering professor and his former graduate student has been awarded a second round of funding from the National Science Foundation small business innovation research program.

The grant provides at least $500,000 over the next two years to Barobo, based in West Sacramento, with potential for up to another $500,000 in matching funds if the company can make sales and attract venture capital.

"We are very excited about receiving this grant," said Harry Cheng, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. "This is a milestone in transferring our technology from the lab into a commercial product."

Cheng hopes his modular robot "Mobot" can become a useful tool for teaching robotics as early as third grade, and engage a new generation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

A single Mobot module has wheels at each end and two hinges in the center. An individual module can drive on its wheels, crawl like an inchworm, or raise one end of its body and swivel around.

The modules can be connected together to make wheeled vehicles, "snakes," “gorilla,” humanoid, or other shapes with different applications. Watch the robot in motion on video.

Cheng and Barobo have been working with regional middle and high schools to use the Mobot in classes. Students can learn to build and program the robots using laptop computers. They can also design and build new prototype parts for the robots using three-dimensional printing.

Cheng and his former graduate student, Graham Ryland, started the company in 2011 based on the patented technology the two invented while Ryland was studying for his master's degree. The technology is licensed by the university to Barobo. The inventors received an NSF SBIR Phase I grant of $150,000 from NSF last year.

Cheng also established the UC Davis K-14 Outreach Center for Computing and STEM Education (C-STEM) to improve education in computing, science, technology, engineering and math. The center is hosting C-STEM Day at UC Davis on Saturday, May 5, an event that will include “RoboPlay Competitions” in which local students will demonstrate their projects with the Mobot.

National Science Foundation director to speak

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

April 25, Wednesday -- Subra Suresh, director of the National Science Foundation, will speak at UC Davis as part of the Chancellor's Colloquium speaker series. His talk, "Science and Engineering in a Globalized World," will begin at 4 p.m. in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.

Suresh was sworn in as director of the NSF in October 2010. The agency has an annual budget of $7 billion and is charged with advancing research and related educational programs in all areas of basic science and engineering.

Before his appointment to the NSF, Suresh was dean of the School of Engineering and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India; a master’s degree from Iowa State University; and a Doctor of Science degree from MIT.

At the NSF, he has established several new initiatives including INSPIRE (Integrative NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education), PEER (Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research, in collaboration with USAID), the NSF Career-Life Balance Initiative, and the NSF Innovation Corps.

Admission to his talk is free, but please register in advance at http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/initiatives/colloquium/index.html.

For more event information, please call (530) 754-2262.

Robosquirrels versus rattlesnakes

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:50:00 -0700

Robot squirrels from the University of California, Davis, are going into rattlesnake country near San Jose, continuing a research project on the interaction between squirrels and rattlesnakes.

In the lab, robot squirrels have shown how squirrels signal to snakes with heat and tail flagging. Through field experiments, researchers from San Diego State University and UC Davis aim to learn more about rattlesnake behavior.

It's not the only use of robots to study animal behavior at UC Davis. Terry Ord, a former postdoctoral researcher now at Harvard University, used robot lizards to study display behavior by anole lizards in the jungles of Puerto Rico. Gail Patricelli, professor of evolution and ecology, has used a camera-equipped robot sage grouse hen to study the mating behavior of these prairie birds.

The collaboration is giving biologists new tools for their work -- and also helping engineers design new and better machines.

The research on the long struggle between California ground squirrels and their main predator, rattlesnakes, began at UC Davis under the leadership of psychology professor Donald Owings, an expert on animal behavior, who died in 2011.

Sanjay Joshi, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at UC Davis, built the original "robosquirrels" for Owings, and is now working with Rulon Clark, assistant professor of biology at San Diego State University and an expert on snake behavior.

The research then and now centers on two squirrel behaviors in reaction to rattlesnakes: a tail flagging movement and the warming of the tail. Owings, with Professor Richard Coss and colleagues, observed that when adult squirrels detect a snake, they approach it head-first in an elongated posture, making flagging movements with their tails. Owings and Coss noticed that when confronting a rattlesnake, the squirrels also heated their tails.

Because rattlesnakes can "see" in the infrared, the researchers thought the squirrels might be sending a signal to the snakes. But, with live squirrels, there is no way to separate tail flagging from tail heating.

Enter the robots. Joshi's engineering lab built a squirrel with a heatable tail and a tail flagging mechanism, each controlled separately.

Using the robosquirrel, Aaron Rundus, then a graduate student in Owings' lab and now an assistant professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, showed that the snakes responded to the heat signal from the squirrel.

"It was the first example of infrared communication in the animal world," Joshi said. That work was published in 2008: an article published in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine in December, 2011, summarized much of the work to date.

Fieldwork is more challenging, he said. Ryan Johnson, a graduate student in Joshi's lab and now at the Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore, built a new robot with smaller and more robust controls that was easier to transport into the field.

The field season is fairly short, a few weeks in late spring and early summer when squirrel pups are born and rattlesnakes come hunting for them.

Then you need to find rattlesnakes in rough country.

"It's definitely an adventure," Joshi said.

Clark began collaborating with Owings and Joshi in 2007. Together, they wrote a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation to take the robosquirrel into the field. The grant was funded with $390,000 in 2010.

Once the researchers have located a foraging snake, they put down some track, set up the robosquirrel and a video camera to record the scene and retreat behind a blind. The snakes seem to accept the robosquirrel as real, Clark said. One of their videos shows a snake biting the robot's head.

Snakes will rarely strike at a flagging adult squirrel -- and if they do they almost always miss, Clark said.

"Squirrels have a remarkable ability to move out of the way of an oncoming snake strike," he said. Even adult squirrels that do not seem to be aware of a snake will often successfully dodge a strike.

Squirrel pups are much more vulnerable. They have less resistance to snake venom and seem more reckless in their behavior. They show the same displaying behavior as adults, but will get closer to snakes -- sometimes with fatal results.

Although not much is known about the mental abilities of rattlesnakes -- they are not ideal lab animals, after all -- they do behave in the field as if they are making complicated assessments about foraging behavior, Clark said. For example, they react differently to adult squirrels versus pups.

Why do squirrels approach the snakes at all? Clark says that they may be trying to assess the nature of the threat. Sometimes snakes will leave the area after encounters with squirrels.

Before joining the campus in 2001, Joshi worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on robots for space exploration. At UC Davis, Joshi began working with psychology professors including Owings and Jeffrey Schank. With Schank, he built robots that emulated the behavior of young rat pups -- revealing new insights into both rat behavior and robot design.

"The reason I'm so excited is that with robots we can really change how animal behavior studies are done," Joshi said.

Tiny trees for solar power

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Microscopic “fractal trees” grown from silver could be the basis of a new type of solar cell, say chemists at the University of California, Davis.

“We expect these structures will allow us to make better, more efficient solar cells,” said Professor Frank Osterloh, a principal investigator on the $100,000 grant.

Fractals are patterns that repeat over multiple length scales. In this case, branches of silver 1-50th the width of a human hair are themselves branched, and smaller branches grow on those branches, forming a treelike pattern.

In a solar cell application, the silver trees are coated with light-absorbing polymers. When light particles (photons) hit the polymer coat, they produce short-lived electrons and holes in the polymer. The positively charged holes are collected through the silver branches, while the electrons move to the counterelectrode to create an electrical potential.

Osterloh compared the structures to real trees, which use a fractal structure of branches to twigs to spread a wide canopy of leaves for sunlight collection. Similarly, the nanosized silver trees will have a large surface area.

Osterloh’s lab at UC Davis will fabricate the solar cells, which will be characterized by collaborators Sean Shaheen at the University of Denver and Richard Taylor, University of Oregon. Boaz Ilan, UC Merced, will carry out computer modeling on the systems.

Funding came from the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement, which has funded Osterloh’s solar energy research since 2010. The new project was one of three “spontaneous proposals” funded during the organization’s investigators meeting last fall.

Expert on youth football head injuries to speak

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Thursday, March 8 -- Stefan Duma, a national expert on concussion, will talk about his work on head impacts in youth football at 4 p.m. in Room 1005 of the Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility at the University of California, Davis.

Duma is professor and department head at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and director of the Center for Injury Biomechanics.

Duma's research on head impacts in second-graders playing youth league football has received wide attention. His group found high-level impacts in both practices and games, and made recommendations to reduce serious head impacts in practices.

Duma's talk is part of the Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Distinguished Seminar Series.

Miniature pressure sensors for medical touch

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0800

A new kind of flexible, transparent pressure sensor, developed at the University of California, Davis, for use in medical applications, relies on a drop of liquid.

The droplet goes in a flexible sandwich of the substance polydimethylsiloxane, or PDMS. The sensor acts as a variable electrical capacitor. When the sensor is pressed down, the sensing droplet is squeezed over conductive electrodes, increasing its capacitance.

“There’s a huge need for flexible sensors in biosensing,” said Professor Tingrui Pan, who led the research project.

He and his colleagues used the sensor successfully in measuring the pulse in the human neck. The sensor also could be used in “smart gloves,” giving physicians an enhanced ability to measure the firmness of tissues and detect tumors, and in “smart contact lenses,” to monitor intraocular pressure without affecting vision.

Pan’s research paper — for which graduate students Baoqing Nie and Siyuan Xing and ophthalmology professor James Brandt served as co-authors — appeared in the December issue of the journal Lab on a Chip.

The National Science Foundation gave partial support to the project.