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| Sunday, 4 December 2005 |
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Science ICIA 2005 : Bringing engineers closer to the technology front by Dr. Trishantha Nanayakkara It has been a neglected issue that the Sri Lankan engineers, scientists, and students tend to lag behind their counterparts in other Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, India, China, and Japan in terms of their exposure to the latest advancements in science and technology. A lack of opportunities to attend international conferences where leading researchers present their latest findings has been one among the major reasons for this unfortunate situation. For those who are very keen in updating themselves, one option is to attend international conferences held in the developed world. Alternative This option is an expensive alternative while being a process where few of our researchers were subjected to harassments at the point of securing visa to enter into some of the developed countries. The other option is to attract international conferences to Sri Lanka, so that our researchers will find it easy to meet their international counterparts and present Sri Lankan findings, while promoting the country as a destination for the international academic community to spend their vacations. In order to make an international conference fruitful, it should be held in collaboration with a large international professional body. International conferences sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, known as IEEE, are regarded to be among the most prestigious forums to present the technical advancements from over 150 countries. IEEE has more than 365,000 members in over 150 countries, almost 40 percent of whom are from outside the United States. It has over 68,000 student members, more than 27,000 society affiliates, 307 sections, 1,446 chapters, more than 1,300 student branches in 80 countries, over 300 student branch chapters, more than 147 affinity groups, and 39 societies (ex. computational intelligence society, robotics and automation society, man and cybernetics society, etc.) and 3 technical councils. An IEEE conference has never been held in Sri Lanka though Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, South Korea, and India have attracted many of them during the past decade. These conferences have contributed to the advancement of the quality and relevance of the graduates from the leading universities in the respective countries. The conference Therefore, the IEEE Sri Lanka section organised an academic conference titled "The International Conference on Information and Automation" with a technical co-sponsorship from the IEEE region-10 (Asia-Pacific). The conference will be held from December 15-18, 2005, at the BMICH. Further details can also be found at the conference website: www.icia2005.mrt.ac.lk The conference will cover the following areas: * Technical advances in disaster management (tsunami), humanitarian, de-mining and rehabilitation: This includes disaster management techniques especially applied to rescue operations in tsunami, landslides, earthquakes and floods, robots and sensors in landmine detection and removal, navigation of mobile robots in rugged terrain, robot manipulators and control, prosthetic devices, tele-operation and remote manipulation, robotics in physiotherapy, etc. A panel discussion will be held to discuss the future needs and research trends. * Industrial automation and modern civilisation: This will try to discuss the latest developments in industrial automation. A panel discussion will be held to review the benefits of automation for developing countries and what we can learn from already industrialised countries. * A wired society and tele-presence: A discussion on novel concepts in virtual reality, kansei systems, and tele-presence in the context of a networked system. It is expected to cover novel results as to how these technologies have revolutionised, distributed production and marketing, education, medicine and surgery, space travel, defense, etc. A panel discussion will address issues such as how developing countries could benefit from these technologies in the areas: Reaching global markets through e-commerce systems, telemedicine, remote education, e-government, etc. * Intelligent robots and man-machine co-existence: This will cover new developments in intelligent robots, their hardware, learning algorithms, sensory systems, and actuators. A panel discussion will clarify how these developments have helped to bring about positive transformations in the human society, future challenges in man-machine cooperation and co-existence, and opportunities for developing countries. Organisers The conference organisers have invited four distinguished leaders in this field. Professor Mo Jamshidi will give a talk on "An Intelligent Virtual Laboratory for Autonomous Agents - Towards Simulating System of Systems". He is a Senior Research Advisor at US Air Force Research Laboratory, KAFB, NM. He was an advisor for the NASA Headquarters (1996-2003), NASA JPL (1993-1997) and an advisor to DOE-ORNL (1989-94), DOE Headquarters with Office of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (2003-2004). He has worked over 4 years in industry at IBM Corporation and General Motors Corporation (USA) and Siemens Automotive, France. Professor Clarence de Silva will give a talk on "Intelligent Mechatronics as a Multidisciplinary Design Area". He secured a Ph.D. degree in Dynamic Systems and Control from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.A. in 1978. From 1978 to 1987 he was an assistant and associate professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was also a founding member of the Robotics Institute, and a Lilly Fellow. During 1987/88 he was a visiting professor at University of Cambridge, England, as a Senior Fulbright Fellow from U.S.A. This work has led to a Ph.D. degree from Cambridge in 1998. He has served as a consultant to several leading companies including IBM and Westinghouse in USA. Professor Toshio Fukuda will give a talk on "Robotic Technology for Safety and Security". He graduated from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan in 1971 and received the Master of Engineering degree and the Doctor of Engineering degree both from the University of Tokyo, in 1973 and 1977, respectively. Meanwhile, he studied at the graduate school of Yale University from 1973 to 1975. In 1977, he joined the National Mechanical Engineering Laboratory in Japan. From 1979 to 1980, he was a visiting Research Fellow at the University of Stuttgart, West Germany. He joined the Science University of Tokyo in 1981, and then joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Nagoya University, Japan in 1989. At present, he is Professor of Dept. of Micro System Engineering and Dept. of Mechano-Informatics and Systems, Nagoya University, Japan. Professor Suran Goonatilake will give a talk on "The use of body-scanning and virtual reality technologies in fashion". He is the Chairman and co-founder of Bodymetrics, a company pioneering the use of body-scanning and virtual reality technologies in fashion. Suran is also a visiting Professor at the University of Arts, London and has created the concept and business model for the Centre for Fashion Enterprise (CFE) at the London College of Fashion. The CFE is pioneering a new way of building luxury fashion companies and draws upon lessons Suran learnt in technology start-ups and practices from the film and music industries. As a PhD student, Suran along with three other students founded Searchspace, an Artificial Intelligence software company that today monitors over 400 million bank accounts each day for over half of the world's largest banks. In 2005, Suran was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's birthday honours list for his services to Entrepreneurship. In addition to the above four speakers, researchers from nearly twelve countries will present their latest findings. The outcome of the conference will be an improvement in the quality and relevance of the Sri Lankan graduates in the related fields, improved international links, and a promotion of local research potential in an international domain. Design industry Therefore, the local design and manufacturing industries will be the direct beneficiaries of this exercise. The industries can support the conference either by being a co-sponsor or by registering engineers in the conference. Details of the registration fees are available on the website given above. We are very pleased to announce that the Ministry for Advanced Technology and National Enterprise Development has been a major sponsor of this conference by providing scholarships to the local research students to attend the conference. The Jinesena Engineering Technologies and the University of Melbourne are the other two sponsors who have pledged funds so far. Fingerprints may illuminate life in the womb Fingerprints may provide important clues about life in the womb, and may even become useful as predictors of disease risk. US researchers, in Atlanta and New York, have now shown that differences in fingerprints between the thumb and little finger are associated with likelihood of developing diabetes later in life. A person's fingerprints are set for life by around the 19th week of gestation, roughly halfway through a normal pregnancy. Most organs, including the pancreas, are also formed by that time. Henry Kahn at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and colleagues decided to look at quantitative differences in ridges between the first and last fingertips - the thumb and pinkie. The team speculated that any disturbances during their formation might also say something about the state of the pancreas, and possibly the likelihood of a person developing diabetes as they age. Diabetes results from the failure of the pancreas to produce insulin, or enough insulin, which the body needs to help it take up glucose. The researchers studied 569 Dutch people, some of whom were in the womb during the Dutch famine of 1944 and 1945, dubbed the "hunger winter". Kahn and his team tested the volunteers' glucose tolerance - a measure which is abnormally high in people with diabetes - and also counted the number of ridges on their thumbs and little fingers by rolling the inked digits onto paper. Prenatal insights Fingerprint ridges are counted in a specific way - prints with a large whorl often have a higher ridge count. The researchers found that people with normal glucose tolerance had an average difference of 6.4 ridges between the two digits, whereas people with diabetes had a much higher "ridge count gradient", at about 8.3."The field needs a way to assess how the human fetus was doing before the end of pregnancy," says Kahn, who reported the findings at a meeting on Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in Toronto, Canada in October. "This is a tool that could give us a glimpse at the early fetus. It's accessible and it's cheap." He believes the some of the signalling factors which influence organ growth may also affect formation of the fingertips, giving an insight into conditions in the womb. Seasonal pattern The team also analysed the data according to the month of conception and found that there was a seasonal effect: normal and diabetic participants conceived in late winter had lower ridge count differences between them compared with those conceived in late summer.But the seasonal pattern was wiped out in people exposed to the famine, they found. This suggests that environmental factors must play a role. "Was it the food? Maternal stress hormones?" Kahn asks."I think there's probably something in this," says John Manning, a psychologist at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, UK, who studies finger-length ratios. "There's a lot of information in the fingers, in terms of what happens prenatally. We don't know what kinds of conditions control them." He agrees with Kahn that signalling factors, such as a group of proteins known as "sonic hedgehog", may be involved, but he also suspects a role for hormones. REUTERS World Year of Physics 2005 The world Year of Physics 2005 is a United Nations endorsed, international celebration of Physics. Around the world, events through out the year 2005 highlight the vitality of Physics and its importance in the new millennium, and will commemorate the pioneering contributions of Albert Enistein in 1905 to the development of modern Physics. Through the efforts of a worldwide collaboration of scientific societies, the World Year of Physics brings the excitement of Physics to the public and will inspire a new generation of scientists. The Institute of Physics, Sri Lanka and the Department of Physics of the University of Colombo have joined hands together to organize a Physics Exhibition for school-children and general public to commemorate the World Year of Physics in Sri Lanka from December 8, 2005 at the Department of Physics of the University of Colombo. The aim of this exhibition is to popularise physics. The theme of the exhibition is 'Physics for all'. The exhibition will be open from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on each day for school-children and general public free of charge. A large number of attractive physics exhibits will be on display and a number of hands-on demonstrations and practicals in Physics, Electronics and Computer applications have also been arranged for students who are interested in these subject areas. There will be a popular physics lecture delivered by an eminent physicist on each day of the exhibition from 12.00 noon to 1.00 p.m. at the Department of Physics. A good collection of physics-based inventions and posters on Einstein's scientific work made by school-children for an islandwide competition are also displayed in the exhibition. In addition, a number of exciting, interactive events on Astronomy have also been included. The organisers expect that the exhibition will raise the interest of students and general public in physics which is considered as the basis for most of the modern technological advancements in all the sectors including health care. Further details of the exhibition can be obtained from the Department of Physics, University of Colombo, Thurstan road, Colombo 03 (Tel: 011-2584777, contact persons: Dr. W. M. K. P. Wijayarathna or Dr. D. D. N. S. Days, e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]). Woman has first face transplant Surgeons in France have carried out the first face transplant, it has been reported. The woman had lost her nose, lips and chin after being savaged by a dog. In the controversial operation, tissues, muscles, arteries and veins were taken from a brain-dead donor and attached to the patient's lower face. Doctors stress the woman will not look like her donor, but nor will she look like she did before the attack - instead she will have a "hybrid" face. It has been technically possible to carry out such a transplant for some years, with teams in the US, the UK and France researching the procedure. Skin from another person's face is better for transplants as it will be a better match than skin from another part of the patient's body, which could have a different texture or colour. But the ethical concerns of a face transplant, and the psychological impact to the patient of looking different has held teams back. Concerns relating to immunosuppression, psychological impact and the consequence of technical failure have so far prevented ethical approval of the procedure in the UK, though doctors here are fully able to perform transplants. 'Gravely disfigured' The 38-year-old French patient from the northern French town of Valenciennes underwent extensive counselling before her operation, which is believed to have lasted at least five hours, and which took place at the weekend at a hospital in Amiens. The French magazine Le Point reports that the tissues, muscles, arteries and veins needed for the transplant were taken from a multi-organ donor in the northern city of Lille, who was brain-dead. The operations were carried out by a team led by Professor Bernard Devauchelle and Professor Jean Michel Dubernard. In a statement, the hospital said the woman had been gravely disfigured in the attack in May this year. She has been unable to speak or eat properly since. It added that the woman - who wishes to remain anonymous - was in "excellent general health" and said the graft looked normal Live donors Like any other transplant patient, the woman will have to take immunosuppressant drugs to help her body cope with the donated tissue. Doctors working in the field say many could benefit from the procedure, including 10,000 burns victims in the UK. Iain Hutchison, an oral-facial surgeon at Barts and the London Hospital, said: "This is the first face transplant using skin from another person." But there are medical, and ethical, concerns of facial transplants. Mr Hutchison, who is chief executive of Saving Faces - the Facial Surgery Research Foundation, warned blood vessels in the donated tissue could clot, the immunosuppressants could fail - and would increase the patient's risk of cancer." Mr Hutchison added there were ethical and moral issues around donating facial tissue. "Where donors would come from is one issue that would have to be considered. "The transplant would have to come from a beating heart donor. So, say your sister was in intensive care, you would have to agree to allow their face to be removed before the ventilator was switched off. "And there is the possibility that the donor would then carry on breathing." Stephen Wigmore, chair of British Transplantation Society's ethics committee, said: "The extent of facial expression which will occur in the long term is unknown. "The skin tends to promote rejection by the immune system very strongly and immunosuppression is likely to need to be kept at high levels for prolonged periods of time. "It is not clear whether an individual could be left worse off in the event that a face transplant failed." Mr Michael Earley, a member of the Royal College of Surgeon's facial transplantation working party, said: "If successful, this is a major breakthrough in facial reconstruction. "It appears that this has been a partial face transplant incorporating the nose and lips; therefore issues relating to similarity in appearance between donor and recipient are unlikely to be a major problem. "We wish the patient and the team a successful outcome and look forward to learning more about the details of the procedure which could be a major step forward for the facially disfigured." REUTERS |
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