Time 9:30 AM – 10:30 AM
Subject COMMERCIAL REVIEW COMMITTEE
Location 318
Recurrence Occurs every Monday effective 8/1/2011 until 8/29/2011 from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM
Reminder 15 minutes
KATHIE HOLLEY @ 5228
Categories ROOM 318

Time 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM
Subject PORT AUTHORITY
Location 307
Recurrence Occurs the third Monday of every 1 month effective 8/15/2011 until 8/15/2011 from 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM
Reminder 15 minutes
ROBIN HAYES
Categories ROOM 307

University of Southern Indiana President Linda L. M. Bennett has announced the issuance on August 2 of U.S. Patent No. 7,991,351 which relates to improved technology for access between wired and wireless networks. The patent is the first issued to a faculty member working with USI’s Center for Applied Research.

Dr. Paul A. Kuban , associate professor of engineering, is the inventor of an interface that makes the fixed networks found in automotive networks, medical instrumentation consoles, and factory automation systems accessible to the latest standard in wireless networks, incorporating access control, encryption, mesh networking, and other features.

“One of the growing roles of the University is to drive innovation as well as education in the region,” Bennett said. “As our internationally accredited engineering program has grown, we have increased faculty and applied research, providing novel solutions to real problems that will help our region thrive economically. We are pleased that Paul Kuban’s innovation has been recognized with a patent.”

The technology in Kuban’s invention can be applied in many scenarios. For instance, it would allow diagnostic codes from an automobile to be translated directly to a mechanics computer without having to connect the car to the computer. In a medical setting, the technology would allow continuous monitoring of a patient who is being wheeled from a patient-care room to the operating room.

“The wireless network is secure,” Kuban said, “and would automatically track the patient as he is moved from one room to another. There would be no need to disconnect anything.”

The product is called the CAN-Bee Interface, the name reflecting the creation of the Controller Area Network (CAN) to ZigBee Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) interface. The interface integrates conventional hardware components and custom firmware.

The Controller Area Network is used worldwide as the fixed network in automobiles, medical instruments, and factory automation systems. It has been in use since the 1980s. Kuban said the installed base of this wired network is vast and continues to grow.

The IEEE (Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers) established in 2003 the wireless standard 802.15.4 which forms the foundation for the growing ZigBee WPAN platform.

The CAN-Bee Interface is low cost, low power, efficient, and secure.

Kuban said the manufacturing cost is approximately 5 percent of the present sales price of existing products with similar capability.

“The CAN-Bee Interface combines the power of the installed CAN infrastructure with the simplicity, compatibility, portability, and multi-faceted feature set of the latest wireless standard, enabling easy ZigBee accessibility to hundred of millions of existing CAN nodes,” he said.

Potential applications include low-cost control system penetration through factory firewalls multipoint, cable-free vibration analysis of heavy machinery integrated vehicle and household automation systems and secure, reliable, re-configurable hospital patient-monitoring systems.

The interface has been tested successfully in a factory automation environment and on board heavy-duty earth-moving equipment. It is available for demonstration to prospective licensees.

Dr. Susan J. Ellspermann , director of the USI Center for Applied Research, said the University pursued the patent in partnership with the Indiana University Research and Technology Corporation (IURTC), which assists researchers in realizing the commercial potential of their discoveries. A nonprofit agency that operates through IUs Office of Engagement, IURTC has the expertise to facilitate the process with the patent office, patent attorneys, and other resources.

Dr. Bill L. Brizzard, director of technology transfer for IURTC, managed the process for USI through a memorandum of understanding. “It’s quite an accomplishment to receive a patent,” Blizzard said. “We already have had some interest in this invention, and we are confident of its prospects for development into a commercial product.”

Along with Kuban, representatives from IURTC will present information about the CAN-Bee Interface September 28-29 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, at a technology showcase sponsored by the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. They will attend similar events in other cities.

Prior to joining USI in 1996, Kuban received two patents related to audio processing in cellular telephones. He completed a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Purdue University and a doctorate in computer science and engineering at the University of Louisville.

Kuban conducted research that led to the invention of the Can-Bee Interface during a sabbatical in 2005 while working toward his doctoral degree. He began working with the Controller Area Network in 2004. After reading about the ZigBee WPAN that was relatively new at that time, he began developing a gateway to enable those two networks to work together.

In addition to teaching, Kuban advises students who compete in the Mini Baja car competition sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers. He also is faculty advisor for the USI Wrestling Club.

A guitarist, Kuban is a member of the band Hoosier Daddy, a rhythm and blues group. Using technology based on the CAN-Bee Interface, he has devised a wireless switching system for synthesizers and amplifiers he uses while playing in the band.

Source: USI.edu

The University of Evansville has once again been named among the best colleges in the Midwest by The Princeton Review. UE is one of 153 institutions recommended in the education services company’s “Best in the Midwest” section of its annual list, “2012 Best Colleges: Region by Region.” The feature is available here.

“Being named one of the ‘Best in the Midwest’ by The Princeton Review is a terrific honor because our inclusion in this list was largely determined by student input,” said UE President Thomas A. Kazee. “When our students responded to The Princeton Review’s surveys, they called the University of Evansville ‘a place where the faculty will know you and really care about you.’ They praised small, discussion-based classes where they feel ‘a strong push towards critical thinking and challenging boundaries.’ The Princeton Review’s recognition demonstrates that we are succeeding in our core purpose of providing students with life-transforming educational experiences.”

The 153 colleges that The Princeton Review chose for its “Best in the Midwest” list are located in 12 states. The company also designated colleges in the Northeast, West, and Southeast as the best in their locales. Collectively, the 629 colleges named “regional best(s)” constitute about 25 percent of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges.

Said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s senior VP/publisher, “We’re pleased to recommend the University of Evansville to users of our site as one of the best schools to earn their undergrad degree. We chose it and the other terrific institutions we name as ‘regional best’ colleges mainly for their excellent academic programs.”

“From several hundred schools in each region, we winnowed our list based on institutional data we collected directly from the schools, our visits to schools over the years, and the opinions of our staff, plus college counselors and advisors whose recommendations we invite,” Franek added. “We also take into account what students at the schools reported to us about their campus experiences at them on our 80-question student survey for this project. Only schools that permit us to independently survey their students are eligible to be considered for our regional ‘best’ lists.”

The recognition from The Princeton Review follows another honor awarded earlier this month: The University of Evansville was ranked #304 in Forbes’ Top Colleges, a list of the nation’s 650 best undergraduate institutions.

Source: evansville.edu

Hardwoods and Horseradish

By: Brent Grafton

For a company to get started and make it in today’s economy, it needs an edge. It needs to have something that the other guys do not have. That edge could be a technology, a location, access to a natural resource, cash, or one of a thousand other assets. If you have an edge then your intrinsic advantage will help carry you through the time when most businesses fail, the pain of start-up and growth.

This philosophy is also true for communities. If we are going to compete for other people’s money in this new world economy, we need an edge. We need a sustainable reason for people outside of our direct market to send us their money.

Economic development is simple, if someone else sends our community more money than we send them, then we show prosperity. If they get more of our money than we get of theirs, then we get a massive number of empty unused properties, a whole group of politicians that try to distract us with “entertainment” venues and a declining tax base with a higher percentage of our government budgets spent on public safety.

Every market has intrinsic advantages, when the world markets change, as they have in the last few decades, new opportunities arise that we as a community should be aggressively seeking out and planning to meet.

We need to be talking about what we do have and could have instead of all the great opportunities that got away.

We need to have a public dialog about who we are and how we can help each other to become a more healthy and prosperous community.

Years ago I was searching for a Habitat fundraising project that the west side church I was serving wanted to help build. In talking with a banker friend, who used to sell horseradish jelly through his banks teller window to support the local food bank, he told me that Evansville was centrally located in one of two growing areas in the country that put the perfect snap in horseradish. Who would have guessed? Apparently we grow a very desirable ginseng root as well.

Evansville’s first real prosperity came from the virgin hardwood forest up and down the Ohio River. We had many prosperous lumber mills and furniture manufacturers. The best lumber trees were cut and the worst were left in the woods to reproduce.

Purdue University has developed a Black Walnut veneer grade tree that matures in 35 years. By some reports, at maturity, each properly cared for acre would have 90 veneer grade trees with a potential value of $10,000.00 each. Instead of paying someone else to do a study and tell us what we lack, why don’t we just use the money to plant Black Walnuts on 550 acres of our 2,300 acre park system. In 7-10 years we should be able to bond the “crop” for enough to make a large down payment on our CSO repairs.

Other resources we might capitalize on… potable water, kaolin, bio-mass, aerated concrete, shale gas, plastics, coal, etc…..

We need to find our edge and sharpen it, economically, socially and politically…it is our future, we need to own it!!!!!