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Is Southern California Ready for El Nino?

DLS-jackson.Speakers at the CSULB College of Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series Thursday agreed that a strong El Nino is brewing, and Southern California should be braced for higher-than-average rainfall this winter and spring. Although engineers and planners have learned much from past El Nino events, large-scale infrastructure improvements are still needed to prevent severe damage from future storms.

El Nino events are classified as weak, moderate, or strong, and usually peak in February. This year’s is strong, said Mark Jackson, meteorologist in charge of the Oxnard National Weather Service office, although it remains to be seen how many inches of rain it will deliver. “I’m not going to give my exact forecast for how many inches of rain we’re going to get. There are too many microphones and cameras here,” he said. Continue reading “Is Southern California Ready for El Nino?”

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The Age of Drones

2015 April 23 Distinguished Lecture Series

by Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series @ the College of Engineering (COE)

While drones have been widely used since the 1960’s during the Vietnam War, they really revolutionized warfare during the recent Middle East conflicts. We saw drones take on roles in both surveillance and strike. In addition, we saw everything from back packable small RC like models, the predator family of strike systems, and ship based vertical systems such as Fire Scout, to the large high flying long endurance Global Hawk. Not only has our military found practical and cost effective use of these autonomous aircrafts, but commercial entities such as Google and Amazon are looking at how they can help their businesses as well. Add to that a whole host of civil applications such as police forces, security systems (including pipeline surveillance), Homeland Security and Border Patrol. Last but not least, is the neighbor next door who just bought a quad copter and is flying it over your backyard swimming pool.

Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series

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U.S. Manufacturing: Technologies for Recapturing Global Advancement

Technologies for Recapturing Global Advancement

Did you know that if the top 500 U.S.-based manufacturing companies were counted as an independent nation, their total revenue would rank them as the third largest economy in the world! Yet, the US manufacturing sector has experienced substantial job losses at an alarming rate over the past two decades. Since the historical peak in the late 1970s, fewer and fewer jobs have been created in the manufacturing sector. In fact employment in manufacturing is now at its lowest since 1950.

Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series

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Engineering for the Body: Reproducing Body Functions

Engineering for the Body

Human biologists, computer scientists and engineers are teaming to advance neuroscience toward achieving yet another one of NAE’s Grand Challenges, namely, understanding the complex network we call brain. Modern noninvasive methods can simultaneously measure the activity of many brain cells. Comprehension of how the brain works will enable engineers to simulate its activities, leading to deeper insights about how and why the brain works and fails.

Engineering Distinguished Lecture Series

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Engineering Lecture Explores Robotics and Medicine

Bioengineering: Robotics and Medicine

Over the past century, engineering has made numerous fundamental contribution to the field of medicine. From the most prosaic forms of engineering like sewer and water sanitation, to chemical engineering processes to produce drugs like penicillin in economical form, and now with medical applications of robotics, engineering has been crucial is increasing human life expectancy. Nowadays robots and automated devices are applied in many diverse forms such as replacing a missing limb, performing a very delicate surgery, delivering rehabilitation therapy like neurorehabilitation for stroke patients, and assisting with learning disabilities.

Modern applications of robotics in medicine are more diverse than ever before. Beside surgery and rehabilitation therapy, these devices are used for medical training, prosthetics, and assisting the aging population and persons with disabilities. Future likely applications of medical robots will be to perform tasks that are otherwise impossible, such as enabling new microsurgery procedures by providing high-dexterity access to small anatomical structures, and integrating high precision imaging into the OR.