Research News
May 2009 IssueTable of Contents:
2009 Sigma Xi Winners
New Textbook Published by Sudhakar Nair
American Heart Association Funding Opportunities
Acknowledgements
2009 Sigma Xi Winners
Senior Faculty Division
Xian-He Sun
Computer Science
Dr. Sun received a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University in 1990. He joined IIT in the fall of 1999 as an Associate Professor of Computer Science and in 2002 was promoted to the rank of Professor.
Dr. Sun is a renowned scientist who has made remarkable contributions to the field of computer science, especially in the field of high performance computing and communication. He is an authority on scalable computing, where computing power can be scaled up to meet a user's demand by harnessing computing resources on the network.
Dr. Sun has authored or co-authored more than 120 publications, and much of his work has had lasting impact. For instance, he was one of the first researchers to provide a theoretical treatment of data implication, where one date query may imply another query. After more than 15 years, this work is still relevant and applicable to fields where memory is limited and many of the data requests must be served off-line via query implication. These fields include databases, information retrieval, and even cell phone design.
Dr. Sun was one of the first researchers to identify the "memory wall." The advancement of computing and memory technologies has been unbalanced. CPU performance has doubled every eighteen months, but memory performance has only improved at an average rate of nine percent per year for the last twenty years. Thus, data access performance is the new bottleneck to sustained system performance rather than computing power. Dr. Sun has presented a formulation to describe the memory impact on performance. This contribution is well recognized by the computer science community.
During his career, Dr. Sun has received more than 25 grants, two patents, and has been actively involved in educating IIT students. He has supervised 12 Ph.D. students, more than 20 Master's students, and several undergraduate students. Dr. Sun also serves on the editorial board of five professional journals, and has organized more than 20 professional conferences and workshops, including the flagship conference in supercomputing, IEEE SuperComputing.
Junior Faculty Division
Xiaoping Qian
Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Qian joined IIT in the Fall of 2004 as an Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He received a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Michigan in 2001. After graduating from University of Michigan, Dr. Qian worked as a research scientist for General Electric in its Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York.
Dr. Qian researches in the area of computational design and manufacturing. He specifically focuses on 3D sensing and modeling and its application in product design and manufacturing; and tip-based nano-imaging and nano-manipulation. Dr. Qian's work in heterogeneous object modeling has been widely cited, and he has been invited to many institutions to speak on this topic. Due to his pioneering work in direct product design and manufacturing from acquired-point cloud data, he was invited to guest edit a special issue on Point-based Computational Techniques in Computer-Aided Design, a flagship journal in the CAD/CAM area.
In his short time at IIT, Dr. Qian has received more than $1.8 million in external research funding from both government and private sources. He has also supervised four Ph.D. students, five Master's students, and created two new courses in the MMAE department. Dr. Qian is also an Associate editor of SME Journal of Manufacturing Systems and has assisted in organizing several conferences.
Student Division
Paritosh Mokhasi
Mechanical, Materials, and Aerospace Engineering
Mr. Mokhasi received a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from College of Engineering and Technology in Karnataka, India in 2000. In 2004, he received a Master's of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from IIT. His Master's Thesis focused on the development of low-dimensional models for the simulation of contaminant dispersion. Among the key features of the types of models that he developed is the ability to predict the evolution of a contaminant plume, both forwards and backward in time, based on data acquired from a minimal number of flow sensors.
Mr. Mokhasi will receive his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in May 2009. He has authored or co-authored six journal articles and has given a number of tutorials in MATLAB to undergraduate students. His Ph.D. Thesis continues the work of his Master's Thesis in the area of low-dimensional models for turbulent flows in complex geometries. During his research, Mr. Mokhasi re-discovered a variant of the method of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition. Through an extension of this method, he was able to extract characteristic modes of turbulent flows that describe the spatio-temporal evolution of the flow within so-called "episodes." Additionally, Mr. Mokhasi has developed a series of increasingly sophisticated models for the dynamics of complex flows, which can accurately model the dynamics of such systems based on time series analysis, non-linear systems prediction, and an innovative application of radial basis function methods.
New Textbook Published by Sudhakar Nair
Introduction to Continuum Mechanics
This textbook treats solids and fluids in a balanced manner, using thermodynamic restrictions on the relation between applied forces and material responses. This unified approach can be appreciated by engineers, physicists, and applied mathematicians with some background in engineering mechanics. It has many examples and about 150 exercises for students to practise. The higher mathematics needed for a complete understanding is provided in the early chapters. This subject is essential for engineers involved in experimental or numerical modeling of material behavior.
Clearly worked out examples and about 150 exercises to practice on. Intrinsic angular momentum and couple stresses in the balance laws and the inclusion of invariant integrals which lead to forces on bodies in a stream and the J-integral in solids. Special theories such as Biot theory of viscoelasticity, Rice theory of irreversible plastic deformation, K-BKZ theory of fluids, Valanis endochronic theory, slip-line theory of ideal plasticity
American Heart Association Funding Opportunities
Grants@Heart, AHA's online web-based system for applicants, Grants Officers, Fiscal Officers and awardees, is now available to applicants for the July 2009 AHA deadline. When working in Grants@Heart, PC users MUST use Internet Explorer 5 or higher and Mac users MUST use Safari. Do not use other browsers or you will be unsuccessful.
In this new system, the Grants Officer (identified by an applicant on his/her application) has the final responsibility of submitting each application to the American Heart Association by 11:59 p.m. Central Time on the appropriate application deadline date. It is highly recommended that you set an internal deadline to allow for review, approval and submission of the applications to the AHA.
Acknowledgements
Ali Cinar, Ph.D.
Dean of the Graduate College and
Vice Provost for Research
312.567.3637
cinar@iit.edu
Ganesh Raman, Ph.D.
Associate Dean for Research
312.567.3554
raman@iit.edu
Julia Chase, M.S.
Editor and Production Coordinator
chasej@iit.edu
The Staff of Research Support Services:
Glenn Krell, M.P.A., C.R.A
Director
Office of Research Compliance and Proposal Development
312.567.7141
krell@iit.edu
Robert Lapointe, M.B.A, J.D.
Manager, Research Marketing & Business Development
Graduate College
312.567.7135
lapointe@iit.edu
Domenica G. Pappas, C.R.A
Director
Office of Sponsored Research & Programs
312.567.3035
pappas@iit.edu