Letter from the Director for April/May

The world is full of valuable information that, if known, would save money, lives, and numerous resources. The trusses supporting our bridges contain information about when the aging structures will become dangerous to cross.

Letter from the Director, Feb. 2011

For the last decade, we at CITRIS have focused our efforts there, developing intelligent technologies that help measure, track, and manage water, energy, and other key resources in innovative ways that benefit the economy, the environment, and our quality of life.

Water Sense: CITRIS MOTES and Wireless Networks Deployed to Help Monitor and Manage California’s Water Supply

A CITRIS-supported collaboration between scientists at UC Merced and UC Berkeley professor is deploying networks of wireless sensors in a prototype project at the National Science Foundation’s Southern Sierra Critical Zone Observatory. The sensors measure snow depth and other environmental factors that, once known, will allow much better measurement and prediction of the availability of our most precious resource.

CITRIS Research Wins Award

Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy’s research in “Tele-Immersion for Physicians” was recently awarded the CENIC 2011 Innovations in Networking Award for High Performance Research Applications.

Bioengineering Advances for Economically Disadvantaged Societies

This talk will present scientific breakthroughs such as the use of cellular phone for medical imaging in small clinics and rural areas, detecting internal bleeding remotely in rural areas through multi-frequency spectroscopy, a simple electrolytic means for low power electricity, using classifiers to augment lack of expert medical care in rural areas, treatment of cancer in rural clinics and others.

i4Energy Seminar: Smart Grid Development at SMUD

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is committed to advancing smart grid technologies in its service territory. Last year SMUD was awarded $127.5 million through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to advance smart grid implementation by several years.

TRUST Security Seminar: Coordination and Control of Distributed Energy Resources for Provision of Ancillary Services

On the distribution side of a power system, there exist many distributed energy resources (DERs) that can be potentially used to provide ancillary services to the grid they are connected to. An example is the utilization of power electronics grid interfaces commonly used in distributed generation to provide reactive power support. While the primary function of these power electronics-based systems is to control active power flow, when properly controlled, they can also be used to provide reactive power support.

New Media RoundTable: A Variation on the Powers of Ten, Futurefarmers

Futurefarmers’ Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine are currently working on a new project for the Berkeley Art Museum. This new project, A Variation on the Powers of Ten, uses the opening scene of the 1977, Charles and Ray Eames film to frame ten discussions with a diverse range of researchers.

Research Exchange: Research to Further Education

As a nation, over half of our students fail Algebra every year. Agile Mind was founded with the mission of changing what happens between educators and students in the classroom in ways that improve the quality of instruction of high school mathematics and science, especially in underserved areas.