Protecting Buildings From Bomb Blasts
Jacobs School Structural originally developed composite overlays to protect buildings efficiently from earthquakes. The material is about as thin as a cotton shirt, and is made up of carbon threads woven to increase the strength and flexibility of a structure. This prefabricated material is applied like wallpaper to walls, floors or columns. The composite overlays allow the building to absorb horizontal forces and prevent key structural components from cracking and causing the building to fail. Some 2,000 hospitals, parking garages and commercial and residential buildings worldwide have been retrofitted using the technique.

"We see this as a real opportunity to make a difference to help save lives," says Gil Hegemier, Professor of Structural Engineering, who along with Structural Engineering Professor and Jacobs School Associate Dean Frieder Seible, is working with industry partners and the government on research to safeguard buildings against blast loads. Full Story

California Institutions Unveil First Optical Network Linking High--Resolution Visualization Centers for Earth, Ocean Sciences
New Visualization Center Dedicated at Scripps Institution of Oceanography

August 14, 2002 – Two leading California universities, a California Institute for Science and Innovation, and four California-based companies today unveiled the world’s first visualization complex dedicated to Earth and ocean sciences, linking wide-screen, “immersive” environments over a 2.5 gigabit-per-second optical network. The group also dedicated a permanent Visualization Center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), linked to a similar facility at San Diego State University (SDSU) through 44 miles of optical fiber, with optical switches and 3.2 million-pixel screens at each end.

The universities, together with the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology [Cal-(IT)2], are creating a prototype for collaborative scientific analysis that could also be used as a “command-and-control” facility for crisis management. “Analysis facilities for complex scientific data sets can also serve as prototypes for real-time analysis of the environment or the health of civil infrastructure during and after natural or man-made disasters, if they are engineered with this dual use in mind,” said Larry Smarr, director of Cal-(IT)2 and a professor of computer science and engineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “This is the first phase of our plan to build such ‘living laboratories’ in southern California.” Full story

Jacobs School Showcases Multi-Use Sensor Networks on Coronado Bridge for Homeland Security, Structural and Seismic Monitoring

July 17, 2002 – A multidisciplinary group of researchers from UCSD recently deployed an ad hoc network of cameras and other sensors on Coronado Bridge. They were linked via high-speed wireless to a makeshift control center in the Computer Vision and Robotics Research laboratory in the SERF building on the UCSD campus. The goal: demonstrate a single monitoring system that could be used simultaneously by academic researchers and agencies as diverse as Caltrans, SPAWAR and the U.S. Coast Guard.

The temporary installation in May was part of an ongoing effort at UCSD to focus sensor network research to respond to the heightened interest in technology for emergency preparedness, including homeland security. "It's really the multi-use of these sensors and the synchronized data transmission," said Frieder Seible, interim dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering and principal investigator on the project. "We can look at everything as a whole in a holistic approach--what's going on on the bridge, and really using it not just for dumb engineering data, but also for security monitoring of important structures."

The monitoring equipment was installed at Pier 14, on the bridge's understructure, roughly 200 feet above sea level. "The bridge is entirely wirelessly connected from Coronado Bridge to Mount Soledad and from there to UCSD," said Hans-Werner Braun, a senior researcher at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) and director of the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN). "On the bridge itself the wireless hub is surrounded by Ethernet connected devices." Full story

Von Liebig Center Hands Out Its First 'Grubstakes' Grants
To Commercialize UCSD Research

June 13, 2002 – The William J. von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and Technology Advancement has awarded $300,000 to the first six projects approved under its Grubstakes Program. The program funds internal projects led by UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering faculty where there is a strong commercial potential for the technology.

Nineteen proposals were submitted in the first funding cycle. "This has been a tremendously successful process," said Robert W. Conn, dean of the Jacobs School, which oversees the center. "The Center received 19 proposals in this first funding cycle, and every one of the projects has great potential."

All of the applicants went through a rigorous screening mechanism and their proposals were reviewed by an external committee. "There are no losers in this first round of grants," said Abi Barrow, the Center's managing director. "Although six projects will get funding, we plan to work with all applicants to develop commercialization strategies for their technologies, and if possible, help them secure other types of funding for their projects." Barrow said the von Liebig Center's business consultants and staff will work with faculty on marketing plans and other strategies to enhance the commercial prospects of funded as well as unfunded projects. Full story

Cal-(IT)² Unveils First Optical Network Linking High-Resolution Visualization Centers For Earth, Ocean Sciences

March 6, 2002 – The Cal-(IT)² Visualization Center at Scripps Institution of Oceanography on March 4 opened its doors to a packed audience of media, industry and university representatives. And after working long hours to get the unprecedented system linking two widescreen (3.2-million-pixel), "immersive" environments via a 44-mile, 2.6 gigabit-per-second optical pipeline, the demonstrations were flawless. The multi-million dollar venture is the world's first such visualization complex dedicated to Earth and ocean sciences. As the San Diego Union-Tribune reported the morning after the Visualization Center launch, "UC San Diego and San Diego State University unveiled a prototype for a scientific network that promises to change the way humans understand, react and adapt to the world around them."

"As overpowering as the visualization capability is, even more powerful is that it is a shared experience across the San Diego metro area," said Cal-(IT)² director Larry Smarr, a professor of computer science and engineering at UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering. "We have plans to build this out with optical networks to all of southern California, all of California, linking across the United States and within a year even internationally." Full story

Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technologies Receives Unprecedented Response to First Solicitation
Applicants Show San Diego to be a Hotbed for Crisis and Consequence Management Technologies

December 14, 2001 – The Center for Commercialization of Advanced Technology (CCAT) will begin the final selection of award recipients this week for the solicitation that closed on October 31, 2001. Local universities, government, industry, research laboratories, and individual entrepreneurs submitted more than eighty applications requesting support services provided by the CCAT to facilitate the commercialization of their technologies in areas such as crisis and consequence management, physical and cyber security, homeland defense, and more. The solicitations represented a wide range of innovative technologies in the fields of biomedicine, biochemistry, electronics, computer software and hardware, networks and communications, and information management systems.

"CCAT is proud to identify and accelerate the work of San Diego technologists who are responding to our nation's needs with their innovations," said Tom Byrne of Orincon Technologies, Inc. "We've known for a while that San Diego is a hotbed for various technologies. The overwhelming number of applications we received strongly validates that the wealth of ideas and innovation thriving here is indeed very applicable to crisis and consequence management issues." Full story