SWE - Spring 2009 - (Page 62)

ENGINEERING WORLD trends that are bringing change as well as opportunity to the engineering profession, the report cited the contribution of virtual design to speed and efficiency throughout the product development process. Collaborative work environments and partnerships also play a strong role in the profession, enabling efficiencies in such areas as sales forecasting and just-in-time manufacturing. For engineers, the collaborative enterprise will create exciting opportunities to innovate and contribute value to organizational goals. Engineers also must embrace the environmental mandate and develop solutions that foster a cleaner, healthier, safer, and sustainable world. Opportunities exist in water management, environmental remediation, food production, and other areas focused on meeting the needs of people and improving the quality of life around the world. The report also discussed methodologies to secure the world’s energy future and the role of engineers in energy production, particularly alternative fuels. Energy technologies requiring ongoing research and development activity for engineers, according to the report, include photovoltaic fuel cells, biofuels, and new alloys that enable jet engines to deliver improved fuel efficiencies. At that moment, wrote Hammond, Douglas Engelbart, Ph.D., and Bill English, along with their team 30 miles away at Stanford University’s Stanford Research Institute, spent 90 minutes at the Fall Joint Computer Conference publicly introducing and demonstrating the computer mouse, hypertext, e-mail, video conferencing, word processing, and cutand-paste. “Bam! In one 90-minute period, the entire human race shook hands with the power of the computer network for the very first time.” derground to allowing port operators to spot suspicious behaviors. The methodology is designed to build models for complicated systems whose behavior is characterized by abrupt changes. These complex, dynamic systems include stock markets and dancing bees: Honeybees switch between several dances in seemingly random fashion, and stock markets are notoriously unpredictable. While modeling of dynamic systems has received considerable attention from researchers in many disciplines, most require constraining assumptions such as a single, consistent mode of dynamic behavDancing Bees and ior, and possibly prior information Stock Market Swings regarding the structure of the unBY ANNE TRAFTON, MIT NEWS OFFICE derlying dynamics. The new methodology sifts through sets of What do dancing honeybees and data, looks for patterns, and comes stock markets have in common? up with equations that describe At first glance, not much. But both these patterns. are complicated dynamic systems In the case of the honeybee, Fox that have been extremely difficult told the model the position of the to model — until now. MIT gradubee and its head angle for 30 seconds, taking data in each of 30 frames per second. From that information, the model came up with the number of different dances, the bee’s dancing state at each time point, the probability that the bee will switch to a different dance at each point, and Graduate student Emily Fox and her advisor, electrical engineering professor equations that Alan Wilsky, discuss her work, which will result in constructing computer models to accurately describe the behavior of complex systems. describe each dance. Fox also tested the model on data ate student Emily Fox has develfrom the Brazilian stock market, oped a methodology for autousing the same algorithm she used matically constructing computer for the dancing bees. Given informodels that can accurately demation on the Brazilian market’s scribe the behavior of complex daily returns over a four-year pesystems with very little backriod, the model inferred the numground information. ber of modes of market volatility The work has numerous potenand the probability that the market tial applications, from enabling oil would shift to a different state companies to get a clearer picture of volatility. I of where oil might be located un- A Defining Moment in History on Your Desk As Richard Hammond noted in the Dec. 9, 2008, www.NewsFactor.com, there are milestones in history “so profound that they remain clearly visible across the span of time.” In fact, you probably have one of those milestones on your desk — the mouse. Hammond recalled what was happening in 1968: Star Trek was in its third season and the emergency 911 number system was just introduced in New York City. “But another milestone happened at the San Francisco Convention Center at 3:45 p.m. on Dec. 9, 1968. That is the date best known for the Mother of All Computer Demos.” 62 SWE SPRING 2009 MIT http://www.NewsFactor.com http://www.NewsFactor.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of SWE - Spring 2009

SWE - Spring 2009 Heritage Club Contents President's Note View from the Executive Suite Editor’s Page Honoring Women’s History Public Policy Update First Lady: The “Second-Hardest Job in America” Bringing Science and Engineering into Public Policy At the Intersection of Engineering and Public Policy From Research to Reality Coffee Table Dialogues Membership Information & Calendar A&B Winning Essays from the Lava Lounge Engineering World: Issues • Events • Technology • People Point of View: Your Role in Public Policy Career Toolbox: Communicating with Congress; Finding Your Voice Corporate Partnership Council Media Shelf: Women’s History Opportunity Index SWE Scrapbook: Dressed for Success

SWE - Spring 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.