“The ML100 Awards honors breakthrough technologies shaping the future of manufacturing, and GE’s successful demonstration of a cloud-based crowdsourcing platform shows how complex product design and development can be taken to another level,” said Jeff Moad, Research Director, Manufacturing Executive/Frost & Sullivan. “In the quest to meet faster product cycle times, it’s platforms like GE’s that will help manufacturers work at the breakneck speeds required to compete effectively in the global marketplace.”

Development of the crowdsourcing software platform was a joint venture announced in April 2012 between GE, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The software is designed to allow DARPA to solicit and attract new ideas and concepts that could shape the design and manufacture of military vehicles and other complex defense systems. Scientists, engineers, and others can use the software to team-up on projects and freely submit, re-use, re-shape, or build upon designs that have been shared. As they evolve, designs can be tested and vetted by those in the crowd.

The new crowdsourcing platform is a key part of GE’s efforts to leverage the Industrial Internet to drive growth. It will connect data, design tools and simulations in a collaborative environment to accelerate the design of highly complex industrial systems.

“This is great recognition for the team and a testament to the work we’ve undertaken in an effort to make manufacturing smarter,” said Joseph Salvo, Manager of the Business Integration Technologies Lab at GE Global Research. “We’ve developed software that can virtually connect some of the best and brightest minds to tackle some of the most critically important manufacturing challenges. We’re seeing the evolution of manufacturing into a high-tech enterprise.”

In its ninth year, the ML100 Awards celebrates companies and individuals committed to breakthrough innovation that enables them to anticipate and quickly meet customer needs. Winning projects are chosen based on voting by a panel of expert judges. GE Global Research was honored in the “Innovative Enterprise Award” category in which winners showed “accelerated product and process innovation through collaboration with customers, partners, and internal stakeholders; the implementation of standard, measurable processes; and the deployment of advanced technologies…projects in this category will demonstrate positive impacts on operating results and process efficiencies,” according to contest criteria.

To see the original press release which includes media contact information, click here.

I am so proud to work for a research organization with programs looking at so many aspects of medical technologies that are impacting every stage of cancer patient care. The high quality, innovative research we are doing each day is getting us closer to the finish line of this race against cancer.

In honor of Cancer Research Month, a few of my colleagues and I have joined together to talk about the programs we are working on and how they will impact the entire continuum of Cancer Research, from detection and diagnosis to treatment and prevention.

Many of the projects have a targeted goal for a specific cancer, such as lung, breast and liver cancer. Other research we are working on here is characterizing the cancer, so that new screening and early identification of potential markers could change and guide precision medicine, health and wellness approaches.

In the video below, you’ll hear more about these projects and you’ll meet some of the amazing researchers behind them. Take a look and share with your family and friends. We are proud to be a part of this race and in the words of my colleague Ashwin Wagadarikar, “This race, like any other race, will have a finish line.”

Families work together to make each other better, and my “work family” is no exception.  Just as I couldn’t succeed in my job without help and encouragement from home, I am also blessed to have a GE team who understands my personal priorities as a mom and my desire to be present in those little moments that make life worth living.  For me, flexibility is about being honest about your priorities so that team members, at work or at home, can support each other in what’s important.  When you can achieve this, you really don’t have to choose.

As my family has grown, I have come to appreciate the value of great coaches.  I have amazing people in my life who push me, encourage me and frequently lead me through life’s challenges.  Having coaches who know my strengths and my struggles, and who celebrate my successes as their own, allows me to set priorities and hold myself accountable every day.

I encourage you to embrace those people in your life who make you better.  The concept of “work-life balance” is somewhat elusive to me, but I believe we can achieve “harmony” when we work with people who truly care for one another.  We have an important responsibility to set priorities, communicate them, and follow through on our commitments, both at home and at work. When you’re not sure what to do or how to do it, look around you – help is everywhere.  You just have to ask.

The White House started its own initiative to improve STEM education with Change the Equation. Many have predicted a STEM talent gap in the US and note the underrepresentation of women and minorities in STEM fields (women hold nearly half the jobs in the US, but account for less than 25% of all the STEM jobs).

At Global Research, one of the things that we do to help get kids excited about STEM is to share our experiences and passion with students from the surrounding areas by introducing them to our diverse careers as technologists. Last week we had such an opportunity with a very special group of students—our own children!

On Friday, May 3^rd GE Global Research hosted our annual event Bring your Child to Work Day. I was excited to be able to participate this year with my 11- year old stepson Alex, and expose him to the many different types of STEM careers here at GE.

After visiting the photo booth and getting our picture with Thomas Edison, the day’s events kicked off with 300+ kids doing some early morning calisthenics.  Next up GE materials scientist, Chris Dosch demonstrated some materials properties to the kids using balloons, racquetballs, and liquid nitrogen.  I am pretty sure every kid in that room now knows the boiling point of liquid nitrogen (-321°F, in case you are wondering). We even took home a piece of shattered racquetball souvenir so Alex could show his friends and tell them all about the demo.

Some of the highlights from the day include:

- Watching a Makerbot 3D printer make GE monograms (another souvenir).
-  A thermal image with IR camera of Alex (yet another souvenir).
- Watching the waterjet cut through pennies to make a smiley face. Did you know that the speed of the water jet is twice the speed of sound? I was told twice on the way home!

A thermal image with IR camera of Alex!

The best part of the day was watching how engaged Alex and the other kids were during the science demos. The words “that was the coolest thing I have ever seen” were uttered in leaving the CT demo (they were demonstrating CT slice technology on a piggy bank and a Darth Vadar Potato Head).  For the older kids, there was even a STEM career round table where researchers at GE talked with students about what it is like to work in engineering/science at GE.

We live in a pretty rural area and this was really the first time Alex has ever been exposed to these kinds of science and computer demos. It was great for him to experience these technologies and learn about it from the technologists working in these areas. Maybe one day Alex will be designing the next CT machine or developing the next generation advanced manufacturing technology. Or maybe he will be a fireman like he says. Either way, it was refreshing to see his excitement around our technology and I hope that this experience will help him understand why I am so passionate about my career in STEM!

Check out the video below to hear from some of the little scientists that attended Take Your Child To Work Day!

Reaching Mom Tactic: Analogies

“Sweater, n.:  garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.” – Ambrose Bierce

The whole point of an analogy is to explain something new by comparing it to something known.  The trouble with analogies is they are inherently imperfect and can lead to incorrectly assuming properties of the known also apply to the new.  Additionally, the known may be so comfortable to the audience (your Mom) that it superimposes itself on what you do.

Cutting Computing Architectures Down to Size

As part of my job, I regularly talk about advances in computer technology – most notably processors and computers built with multitudes of processors. But why is this hard? Can’t you just buy “the best” processor from Intel or IBM or NVIDIA? The challenge is the myriad of different problems we try to solve with a computing platform – mapped to a complex universe of possible solutions across combinations of hardware and software choices.

After many flawed analogies, the simplest I’ve come to employ is yard work. Many of our Moms assigned yard work chores while we were growing up. On any given Saturday, two tasks I may have performed were mowing the lawn and cutting down an old tree. Abstractly, these are the same task: employ a machine to sever plant material.

I was willing to spend more time, care, and fuel on the tree task than a single blade of grass. Thus, a chainsaw is the tool of choice for the job.  But to cut the lawn with a chainsaw would result in poor quality, wasted time and fuel, and perhaps cause the neighbors to hide behind shuttered windows! Similarly, while a mower is time-efficient at cutting grass (a very large number of blades of grass cut simultaneously in a “massively parallel” process), it lacks the capability to chop down a tree.

So what do Computer Architecture and yard work have in common? You need to understand the variety of tools, particularly as new ones are invented, and then properly select and apply them to the required task. The risk is overhearing Mom then repeat: “He is a computer gardener” – but the payoff is eerily lucent: “He is trying to invent a lawnmower that works on forests.  But it’s really computers and data.”

Putting Cloud Computing Through the Wringer

The buzz around “Cloud Computing” is so pervasive, even Mom asks what’s the big deal. My favorite analogy first appeared in Christofer Hoff’s Rational Survivability blog: Laundry. You have a home computer for data. You have a home washer /dryer for clothes. They are designed to carry a workload proportional to expected historic use at a point of need. There is a clear value in knowing your washer is available and that the intimates you put in it stay in the house. But you had to purchase the washer and dryer, make an informed choice in doing so, and you expect it to work for many years.  Most likely you do not employ all of its features and over that time do not benefit from advances in washer/dryer technology improvements.

Now suppose you host a family reunion and suddenly the demand for clothes washing spikes, either you can inefficiently employ your domestic appliances or load up baskets and either drive to a Laundromat (Infrastructure-as-a-Service/IaaS) or have these picked up by a Laundry Service (Software-as-a-Service/SaaS). The advantages here include: someone with more expertise than yourself selected the appliances, purchased them, maintains them, and you only pay when you use them – for the small part of their life you use. Because their purpose is to serve a market of users (multitenancy) there is a much larger capacity collectively (and perhaps even individually) than at home.

So rather than running 8 loads one after another, you can stuff 4 larger machines at once and complete the task in 1/8^th of the time. If a laundry service, you even benefit from their expertise in operating the machines and using detergents, and offloading the labor involved in the process from dirty to wash to dry to fold.

However – there are some inconveniences and risks. You need to be able to pay at time of service (perhaps with a bucket of quarters), you incur a delay in the movement of your clothes to and from these machines, others are using the machines, so it’s possible you may need to wait or that your intimates may be seen by others if care is not taken, or you may even lose something in the process.

There are many flaws to this model – it is incomplete, exaggerates some aspects, and clothes are not digital (yet) so cannot be replicated or transmitted (like a virtual closet). But as a canonical task often lovingly delegated to Mom (particularly in the college years), laundry is a familiar experience from which to discuss “The Cloud.”  This analogy is also ironic and potentially confusing on two fronts: One, GE obviously manufactures actual washers/dryers, and two, GE Aviation builds computers for aircraft that literally operate in the clouds.

Pleasing Mom

There is a clear benefit to this exercise, no matter how tedious or seemingly futile. We, as passionate practitioners of engineering and science, directly benefit from being able to clearly communicate our work to non-technical people. We need the ability to describe how our work is important to our employer and customers, what we actually do, and why it is challenging. The fact that our Mom wants to get the low down on our highly technical job, and has the patience to listen is actually a gift and great practice.

I lead a Computing lab that frequently collaborates with Mechanical Engineers, Physicists, Biologists, Chemists, etc., so it’s not unusual that a courageously asked naïve question actually leads to a novel approach at problem-solving.  Our discussion with Mom becomes an “outside” viewpoint that forces us to think about a technical problem from a radically different angle.  These outside viewpoints can lead to insights and connect us with new colleagues (which should please Mom as she always wants you to make new friends.)

At Your Mother’s Knee

One of the greatest gifts of Mothers is a strong foundation from which we build everything we become. While our technical skills may not have come from Mom, we can thank her for fostering us being curious, observant, disciplined, and patient. To then reach into the darkness where nobody has before imagined, taking the calculated risks needed to reap great reward – we are ever-armed with the confidence, the safe harbor, and the encouragement of our Mothers.  Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms out there and I hope your day is spent on a cloud that needs no explanation — cloud nine.

 “No one in the world can take the place of your mother.
Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right.
She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones.”  – Harry Truman

Angela Fisher is an environmental engineer in the Environmental Technology Lab at Global Research where she works on the ecoassessment center of excellence team. The team focuses on GE’s environmental initiatives. Each year on Earth Day, she makes it her personal mission to share her environmental expertise andpassion for the environment with a group of elementary school children whom she describes as optimistic, innocent and enthusiastic.

Angela kicks off the annual day reading a story to the kids. She often selects one of her favorites, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. In the book, the Lorax (the tree hugger) leaves the Once-ler (the tree mugger) with a stone inscribed with the word, “unless.”

After years of pondering the meaning behind this simple word, the Once-ler finally understood it when a young boy came to plant a tree in the severely polluted environment that was once a beautiful, pristine valley. “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not,” the Once-ler told the boy.

Angela said she felt energized after spending her day with young, first-grade minds who really care about the environment  and left the school that day feeling confident that this generation will take a stand for our planet.

Throughout the day, Angela and the kids brainstormed things they could do, such as reusing the other side of a paper when drawing a picture and turning off the overhead lights, leaving a just a tiny nightlight on when going bed. “These are their ideas. I give them some starting points, and then they just keep feeding off of each other,” Angela said.

The little Loraxes really impressed Angela when they started talking about the topic of endangered species. The kids knew about the California condor and how there are so few left in the wild and how polar bears’ habitats are shrinking.

A highlight of Angela’s day came when they were discussing recycling. “I said to them, what happens to a piece of paper when you recycle it?” “Well it becomes a new piece of paper,” they replied. “And what happens when that piece is recycled?” Angela asked. “It just keeps becoming new and new paper every time!” “They’re so smart. They get it,” Angela said.

Not only does Angela “speak for the trees,” she acts for them too. “With a family of four (two being young children) we committed to creating less waste by downsizing to a little trashcan for our household. The kids understand that trash doesn’t just disappear once you throw it away!”

The family has four times the amount of recycling as they do trash each week.  They reduce or reuse as much as possible and maintain a compost pile for their fruit peels, veggie scraps, and coffee grounds. As a family, they consciously strive to ‘tread lightly’ on their journey through life.

Back at the Research Center, her passion and commitment radiates down the halls where she evaluates the way GE creates, uses and disposes of products and finds ways to minimize resource consumption and environmental emissions to our planet. But whether at work, in a classroom or at home, she embodies the message that if we all think and act in a conscious way, and everyone speaks for the trees, our planet can be the healthy place it is intended to be.

“This is an amazing, but not at all unexpected accomplishment,” said Mark Little, GE Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. “Trifon’s work speaks for itself. Without his decades of dedicated research into superconducting magnets, MRI technology would not be where it is today – a mainstay of hospitals around the world. I congratulate Trifon on this milestone not only in his career, but for GE as a whole.”

Laskaris began his career with GE in 1967 after earning his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. He joined GE Global Research in 1973 to conduct research into superconducting generator technology. Then, beginning in 1982, and for the next 20 years, Laskaris would do some of his most ground-breaking work directing research activities that resulted in prototypes for the superconducting magnets at the heart of GE’s world-class MRI systems. His team’s prototype designs and technologies are the basis for the hundreds of 1.5T Signa magnets produced annually at GE’s magnet factory in Florence, S.C.

From there, Laskaris turned to the development of a succession of increasingly sophisticated, higher and higher field magnets for open MRI systems. These addressed the issue of claustrophobia and, more importantly, permited surgeons to have access to patients while they are being scanned, in order to provide image guided interventional procedures. His research led to production of the Signa Open Speed MRI – the highest-field open MRI system on the market today.

Currently, Laskaris is leading the technology development of next generation MRI magnets. These magnets will revolutionize access to MRI while significantly reducing cost of ownership. The end result will be greater access to cost-efficient, quality healthcare for more people living in underserved areas.

Laskaris has been involved in virtually every critical milestone in MRI technology at GE, either personally developing or directing the development of the magnets which are so crucial to these imaging devices. From GE’s first MRI system to a series of increasingly sophisticated ones, both open and closed, the higher field strengths Laskaris’s magnets enable are the key to improved image quality and, therefore, better diagnosis.

Laskaris has also made pioneering contributions in the development of superconducting rotating machines for power generation. They include a 20-MVA utility-type generator, the first to produce full power, and a 20-MW high-power-density generator for the U.S. Air Force. His ongoing research is expected to enable power generation systems that are more compact and more efficient to operate.

“I feel honored and privileged to have had the opportunity to spend the last 46 years of my life working at GE, on research that is truly making a difference in people’s lives,” said Laskaris. “This is a goal that I really never set out to reach and I certainly couldn’t have done it without the support and efforts of so many of my colleagues. It’s gratifying to know that, collectively, our years of research have taken medical imaging to new heights.”

Aside from earning 200 patents, Laskaris has also received several other awards and accolades over the course of his career. In 2004, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the most prestigious honors bestowed upon an engineer. He’s also the recipient of three awards from GE Global Research: a Whitney Technical Achievement Award in 1994, presented to a team that has developed exceptional technology that’s not yet commercialized, but is viewed as a potential market game-changer, for Signa SP MRI Magnet; a Coolidge Fellowship Award in 1998, the highest research achievement granted to an individual within GE Global Research; and a Dushman Award in 2002, granted to a team that has developed exceptional technology that has been commercialized, for Signa Open Speed MRI.

Laskaris has authored more than 60 refereed journals, conference proceedings and other publications. In addition to being a member of the National Academy of Engineering, he also belongs to the Greek Chamber of Engineers.

Cloud computing is changing not only the way retail businesses and back office operations function; GE thinks it has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing as we know it. I lead the Business Integration Technologies Lab at GE Global Research. My team is developing applications for GE’s industrial businesses that would like to take advantage of crowdsourcing and cloud computing capabilities.

Last year, we demonstrated an innovative crowdsourcing platform with DARPA and are now exploring the use of this technology for GE and its partners. As part of this project, GE was the first commercial user on AWS’ GovCloud.  This is one vehicle for how industry can connect into the Cloud to manage product design and development.

On Thursday morning, I have been invited to give a talk at Amazon’s AWS 2013 Summit at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in NYC. At the Summit, I will talk more extensively about the new possibilities cloud applications can enable in smart manufacturing. You can watch my presentation live.  Amazon will be live streaming the broadcast, which you can access here.  I hope you will tune in.

- Joe

So what does the future hold for electricity? It’s unlikely that our dependence will do anything but increase, given the versatility, ubiquity, convenience, and cleanliness of electricity as a power source. Will the supplies of electricity keep up with our demands, will the electric grid be able to keep up with increasing demands and changing energy sources, will interruptions increase or decrease, will new electricity sources appear, and will the price be affordable for everyone? The answers depend on human innovation and our willingness to invest in the appropriate technologies and infrastructure.

Below is short clip where I discuss grid technologies, and why we’d like the grid to work better.  Take a look, and if you have any thoughts or questions on the topic, I will be hosting an IamA on Reddit Thursday, May 2, at 2:00pm EST, with researchers from our Grid Technologies Lab regarding the Future of Electricity.

I look forward to discussing the Future of Electricity with you!

- Jim (Stump the Scientist)

In summary, fossil fuel subsidies are high while consumer subsidization of renewable energy grows but some German Industry is excluded. Fossil plants continue to become more flexible and coal power grows in Poland. The German electricity grid capacity needs to increase. Possibly the most important question is, will natural gas fracking be allowed in Germany? Here are some details.

Global fossil fuel subsidies in 2011 were equivalent to $110 (€85) per ton of carbon emitted. In comparison, global subsidies for renewables amounted to less than 17% of fossil fuels.  The CO2 price recently hit a low of €2.81 ($3.75) per metric which is far below the €30 / ton needed for investment in technologies to cut carbon emissions.

To encourage investment in renewables, the German government allows operators of renewable energy plants to sell their electricity at a guaranteed fixed price or feed-in tariff that is above the market price. Energy consumers pay the difference via a renewable power surcharge on their electricity bills. To date, there has been no upper limit on Germany’s subsidies for renewables. The surcharge has grown to a record 5.28 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity this year.  The German government will exempt some 1,550 industrial companies from paying the special surcharge. Coal appears to be Warsaw’s main strategy when it comes to energy with major investments in coal-fired power plants of €24 billion over the next eight years.

A member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet is calling for a radical solution to the desperately needed expansion of high-voltage power lines across the country, a critical infrastructure project that has stalled in recent months. The German government is planning to accelerate an end to the virtual moratorium on the controversial natural gas extraction method called fracking, according to Spiegel Online. For the moment, Germany is far away from allowing large-scale fracking. It is currently being tested at a single site.

I hope you can see from the above items that the Germany energy market is interesting from many aspects and leads the world debate in many areas. Global Research in Munich is active in waste heat recovery research to improve power generation efficiency as well as large scale energy storage in the German funded ADELE project that will help with renewable integration into a congested grid. GE is well positioned to expand its product in the natural gas space in Europe, if fracking is pursued. GE is already supporting customers who perform fracturing with improved pumping, water cleaning, energy management, fracturing fluids and other technology advances.

When detailed design of a jet engine meets research

Our Aviation business traditionally owns detailed design of jet engine components, and my team traditionally owns research topics on new cooling, modeling, and measurements technologies. We are now forming a sub-team that will straddle both the Global Research and Aviation roles – some real design work, on our most challenging and advanced engines, with elements of our newest technologies. I am looking for five talented folks to join this hybrid team.

The design element is a little different than our traditional research positions, but I’m really excited by it. Most people we hire are brilliant researchers, but don’t have direct experience in turbomachinery heat transfer. By adding a real design element to the first several years of a researcher’s career, I expect that these folks will get smarter faster about what it takes to get technology into jet engines, enhancing their careers over the long haul.

Sound interesting to you? If so, here are the must have’s.

- An incredibly strong background in fundamentals of heat transfer, fluid dynamics, or related fields

- A very compelling research background. I’m not interested if your thesis or dissertation is just what your advisor told you to do…I want to know why was your work innovative? Why is it incredible important? What key decisions did you make…how did you LEAD your thesis or dissertation research?

- An incredible passion to tackle challenging problems and develop bold technologies, but especially passionate about getting those technologies onto real jet engines…fast.

Think you fit the mold so far? Here’s what you don’t have to have:

- Expertise in turbomachinery or gas turbine heat transfer. That’s definitely a bonus, but not a requirement. We can teach you that. Instead, I want to know that, in whatever fluid dynamic or heat transfer research you conducted, that you were the best-of-the-best…that you solved a challenging problem with excellent scientific insights and innovation.

- A background in heat transfer. The job heavily involves heat transfer, and specific experience in heat transfer is a bonus, but as long as you have a strong background in fluid dynamics, combustion, or a related fluids field, you will be a viable candidate.

Whether you are about to graduate from college, or have many years of experience, if you have an advanced degree in a relevant engineering discipline and think you will blow away my criteria above, then I want to hear from you. Click on the links below to check out the job postings and send in your resume.

Can’t wait to get you on our team!

Job Postings:

Mechanical Engineer-Thermal Systems

Lead Heat Transfer CFD Engineer 

Senior Heat Transfer Design Engineer

Lead Heat Transfer Design Engineer

Computational Heat Transfer Engineer

I am excited that recently I was able to attend Pittcon 2013, the 64th Conference and Exposition for Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy that was held in Philadelphia.  This year, with more than 18,000 attendees and more than 1000 exhibiting companies, Pittcon provided an excellent forum for reporting new technical achievements in analytical chemistry, measurement science, and materials characterization and providing the opportunity of learning about new products that support our research and make it more productive.

Together with Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tufts University I co-organized an Invited Symposium “Sensors for food quality and safety: from the lab to unobtrusive applications”. We had speakers from US Government (Dr. Betsy Jean Yakes from US Food and Drug Administration), academia (Prof. Michael McAlpine from Princeton University and Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto from Tufts University), and industry (Dr. Leonardo Bonifacio from Opalux and Dr. Radislav Potyrailo from GE Global Research) who demonstrated new opportunities in sensors for food quality and safety that are emerging from the recent developments in sensor technology.

Invited speakers and co-organizers of the Invited Symposium “Sensors for food quality and safety: from the lab to unobtrusive applications” that was held at Pittcon 2013 in Philadelphia, PA March 17-21, 2013. From left: Prof. Michael McAlpine (Princeton University), Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto (Tufts University), Dr. Radislav Potyrailo (GE Global Research), Dr. Betsy Jean Yakes (US Food and Drug Administration), and Dr. Leonardo Bonifacio (Opalux).

Our speakers critically analyzed innovative strategies on how to accomplish measurements of food condition, freshness, and quality using sensors based on photonic, radio-frequency, microwave, and terahertz detection modalities and how to advance these sensor developments from the detailed studies in the laboratory to their practical unobtrusive applications.  At this symposium we have discussed that recent innovations in transducer technologies, sensing materials, data processing, and fabrication principles have facilitated significant achievements in chemical and biological sensing. We showed that modern sensors have demonstrated detection limits down to single molecule levels and sub-second response times, the ability to reject environmental interferences and preserve sensor-response accuracy.  These and many other recent advances in sensing science are facilitating the applications of sensors for the real time determination of food quality and insuring food safety with previously unavailable capabilities.

ACS is committed to “Improving people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry.”  This vision is “to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people.” Together, these two statements represent our ultimate reason for being and provide a strategic framework for our efforts.

ACS supports two national meeting and expositions annually, one in the spring and one in the fall.  The 245th ACS National Meeting in Exhibition will take place April 7-11, 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana.  A number of GE researchers (both at the research center and at the various businesses) will attend this meeting to hear the newest developments in their field of study.

Three of my colleagues will be giving talks at this meeting.  See below to learn more about them, meet their research teams, and hear a bit about the talk they’ll be giving next week.

Robert Perry will be presenting a paper entitled “Progress using Aminosilicones for CO₂ Capture,” at the CO₂ Capture, Sequestration, Conversion and Utilization Symposium. Global concern over rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and its implication in global warming has spawned numerous efforts aimed at mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past 4 years, we have focused our efforts on 2 methods for more energy efficient post-combustion capture of CO₂. Both processes use novel amino-silicone solvents and early lab and bench-scale experiments have indicated that energy savings of 25-35% could be realized over that of conventional aqueous-based amine capture technology. If carbon capture is incorporated into power generating facilities (especially coal-fired plants) two advantages would be realized. First, more of the energy that the plant produces will be delivered to the customer as electricity rather than being used to remove CO2; thus keeping electrical rates lower than might otherwise be seen. Second, the power plant emissions would be cleaner and better for the environment.

This is a 4-day symposium focused on the chemistry and technology being used for absorbing CO₂ from anthropogenic sources as well as use of the captured CO₂.  The paper will be given on Wednesday, April 10^th at 11:30 am in the Morial Convention Center, Room 219.

Bob obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1985 from Colorado State University and then spent 10 years at Eastman Kodak working in the areas of new polymerization chemistries. He then moved to GE Silicones and during 9 years, worked in and managed the Americas Fluids Group, which developed products for personal care, the textile industry and oil and gas refining. In 2004, he moved to GE’s Global Research Center. His research has spanned from materials for holographic storage to fuel additives to tire chemistry and most recently carbon capture.

The GE Global Research CO2 Capture Team

Radislav Potyrailowill be presenting an invited talk entitled “Toward rapid detection of biological particles using multivariable resonant label-free biosensors” at the Remotely Controlled Colloids and Interfaces Symposium.

In this talk, Radislav will discuss the results of the recent collaboration with Prof. David Sinton from the University of Toronto on the development of biosensors with significantly improved selectivity and reduced response time. While significant achievements in transducers for biosensing have resulted in demonstrations of single molecule and single particle detection limits, these advances were demonstrated in pristine buffer conditions, often without interferences.  Further, with the reduction of concentrations of biological molecules and biological particles, their diffusive transport to micro- and nano-sensors can easily take long time scales of days and even months, signifying the arrival to the limits of practical measurements.

In this study, the team of GE Global Research and University of Toronto applies GE’s earlier developed multivariable resonant sensors for detection of biological particles in fluids. The operation principle of our developed multivariable resonant sensors is based on measurements of the resonance impedance spectra of the resonator followed by the multivariate analysis of the resulting sensor response.  Two examples of our developed devices are illustrated below.  One of the key aspects of our developed transducers is the ability to reject interferences from the samples that contain species besides our target analyte particles. The design principles of the transducers will be discussed that include (1) designs of the transducers to enhance the sensitivity toward the analyte particles and (2) designs of the sensing region to reduce the diffusion time of biological species to the transducer surface and thus, reduce the time requested for biological detection. Such new developments in biosensors should provide the real-time information about the level of biological contaminants and improve the quality and safety of the resulting products.

Selected examples of GE-developed multivariable resonant sensors operating in the radiofrequency range (left) and microwave frequency range (right).

Radislav obtained an Optoelectronics degree from Kiev Polytechnic Institute, Ukraine, and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. He is a Principal Scientist at GE Global Research Center and SPIE Fellow with his research interests that include microanalytical instrumentation, functional nanomaterials, bioinspired photonics, and wireless sensors.  Radislav has over 150 publications and over 75 granted US Patents. He serves as an editor of the Springer book series Integrated Analytical Systems, Consulting Editor of ACS Combinatorial Science, and Editorial Board Member of Sensors. Most recent awards include 2010 Prism Award for photonics innovation by SPIE and Photonics Media and 2012 Blodgett Award by GE Global Research for outstanding technical achievements.

This is a four-day symposium is focused on methodologies for control of biological systems and bio-interfaces and has been organized by Prof. Sergiy Minko (Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Clarkson University), Prof. Igor Luzinov (School of Materials Science and Engineering, Clemson University), and Prof.  Gleb Sukhorukov (School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London).  The paper will be given on Tuesday, April 09, from 10:25 am to 10:50 am in New Orleans Marriott, Room: Studio 10.

Peter Perez-Diaz will be presenting a paper entitled “Combustion of Heavy Fuel Oil” at the 10^th International Symposium on Heavy Oil Upgrading, Production and Characterization, which provides an update on the progress of a research program led by Soumya Gudiyella and Ashwin Raman at the Combustion and Kinetics Laboratory in Bangalore, India. The paper will be presented on Wednesday, April 8^th at 3:40 pm in the Morial Convention Center, Room 231.

Heavy fuel oils (HFO) are used in marine engines for transportation and in industrial gas turbines and boilers for power generation. Due to the complex nature of HFO, the combustion of HFO was studied using a surrogate-based approach. The surrogate fuel for HFO emulates the composition of the fuel during de-volatilization phase and is comprised of a few surrogate fuel components. The surrogate-based methodology provided a paradigm shift in the approach towards modeling liquid fuel combustion using CFD. We moved from traditional single step kinetics approach to using detailed kinetics. Adapting this methodology will result in better emissions predictions over wide range of conditions and thereby result in better combustor designs.

Peter Perez-Diaz obtained a Chemistry degree from the Central University of Venezuela and a Ph.D. in Fuel Science from Pennsylvania State University in 2010, after which he joined GE Global Research. Before attending Penn State, Peter worked for about 5 years in Intevep, the Research and Development Center of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), where he worked on projects involving fuel quality and formulation, technical assistance to the refining sector and development of new products for the domestic market.

Soumya Gudiyella obtained her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinois at Chicago in the area of jet-fuel combustion in May 2012. Soumya joined the GE Global Research Center in Bangalore as a Research Engineer in Combustion and Kinetics Lab in June 2012. Her major area is chemical kinetics and she has developed a reduced mechanism for HFO combustion, which can predict different combustion and emission characteristics when HFO in burned in GE gas turbines.

Ashwin Raman obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of Illinios at Chicago in May 2008. He is a Lead Engineer at GE Global Research Center in Bangalore in Combustion and Kinetics Lab. He has been developing high fidelity reduced chemical kinetic mechanisms for conventional and unconventional fuels, which would be used in GE’s Gas Turbine and Reciprocating engine combustor designs and aid in developing future combustors with lower emissions and higher  efficiency.

If you happen to attend the meeting, be sure to talk with the above researchers in person!  You may also post comments and/or questions below. Looking forward to hearing from you and stay tuned for a post with our takeaways from the meeting!

- Vin

Life at Global Research is incredibly exciting because so many people around here are working in a technology area that they love. So here you have innovative ideas coming to light from all kinds of different angles such as mechanical design, electrical engineering, materials, and turbomachinery. In the end, researchers need to understand how products really work in the field. This is a key element to inventing high-impact products—and close connection with GE business is vital.

A great example of this is GE Artificial Lift. Acquired in 2011, Artificial Lift has jumped at the opportunity to bring GE technologies into their products. And there are lots of opportunities to do that.

The gas turbines, steam turbines, jet engines, and pumps that we make across our Aviation and Energy businesses provide countless turbomachinery technologies for Artificial Lift. The valving and sealing that has to be done with sand trapped under huge pressures brings a whole other level of coating technologies to the table for Artificial Lift. The ultra-reliable alternators that have to pass FAA certification at very high temperatures before they are installed on jet engines teaches GE how to improve the motors we make for artificial lift.

What’s great about trading technologies between businesses is that ideas and technologies flow in both directions. Right now, there is a huge effort to bring a collection of advanced monitoring and diagnostic tools together to add value to Artificial Lift assets. This “big data” architecture is looking like the right framework to use in other parts of GE Oil & Gas as well.

Pretty soon, the customers who use GE turbomachines from Nuovo Pignone, Italy may use the same interface as the customers in Texas or Oklahoma to see how well their equipment is working for them, and to plan ahead for maintenance.

The hydraulic engineers in Artificial Lift have also laid the groundwork for a line of pumps that handle big streams of gas mixed with liquid, and this technology is highly sought by customers of GE businesses across Europe and the Americas.

The Oil & Gas industry is a fast moving one. People know that they have to be smart about recovering and efficiently using Petroleum, the main source of energy for the world. Mega trends show that producers have found huge amounts of petroleum in hard-to-get places, and the industry is working to make this happen with new technology—right now.

With an industry moving at high speeds, innovation must move even faster. Faster means more of the right brains focused on the right things. This is how the new Global Research Oil & Gas Technology Center will help GE deliver the world’s energy through technology.

This center will connect innovative ideas from the Research Center with product expertise from Artificial Lift, and their customers. With this intersection of know-how, GE will be able to evaluate, build, and prove more ideas faster than either of the other groups could do on their own.

The industry experts can put the best tests to work according to what they have learned in the field. The technology experts can work on inventing machines that pass those tests and this center can focus on bringing ideas to light quickly.

I think this new center will allow researchers, business and customers to work together and innovate in ways like never before. If you’re interested in learning more, view the short video below of Gary Ford, President and CEO of GE Artificial Lift. In this clip, Gary shares his thoughts around the Artificial Lift business today and the importance of working with our research centers to develop technology for the Oil and Gas industry.

- Jeremy

GE’s work with lasers dates back more than 50 years. Just two years after the laser was invented in 1960, Robert Hall, a physicist in GE’s Niskayuna lab, demonstrated GE’s first big breakthrough in lasers, the invention of the semiconductor (diode) laser. Many of the laser applications in people’s daily lives stem from Dr. Hall’s invention. TV remote controls, price code scanners in stores and laser printers are all examples of laser diodes.

GE scientists have been developing laser technology ever since, with the most significant contributions happening in advanced manufacturing applications. GE has pioneered the use of lasers in manufacturing ranging from hole drilling in aircraft blades for cooling to the first use of lasers for surface treatment of blades for better strength. Recently GE laser scientists at GE Global Research in Shanghai built a unique laser deposition machine that is capable of efficiently building difficult-to-work with materials like titanium into parts as large as 1 meter tall. This additive manufacturing technique is being developed to form the leading edge of our jet engine fan blades, and we are evaluating a range of GE business applications that involve similar complex components.

Lasers are also used to assemble intricate components for a range of applications including filaments for lighting products, electrical generator components, X-ray imaging assemblies and most recently, GE’s new Durathon Battery. GE researchers have also developed new techniques in laser scribing to interconnect cells in a solar module.

“As manufacturing becomes more advanced, we’re beginning to see laser technologies in manufacturing move from specialty applications to common tools used by manufacturing workers on the plant floor,” said Hongqiang Chen, who leads new developments for GE in laser technology. “New manufacturing employees will sort of be like Jedi Knights, wielding laser tools that cut, weld and scribe advanced metal and ceramic materials into parts.”

Chen noted that the integration of laser tools and processes into manufacturing is all about going faster, being more efficient, and improving performance. The global environment for manufacturing is becoming ever more competitive. With product cycle times getting shorter and labor costs rising in developing world, the premium today is on technology to be competitive. In manufacturing, companies are looking for ways to increase the speed and efficiency of production on their plant floors. Laser devices are key tools being used to help them achieve these goals.

Interested in receiving breaking news from Global Research via email? Visit http://ge.geglobalresearch.com/subscribe/ and select ‘Breaking News’.

A few months ago I posted a nano CT blog introducing this technique, how it works and why we like to use it at GE. I would like to share our recently published feature article in the Microscopy Today magazine, Micro/Nano-CT For Visualization Of Internal Structures

This article talks in detail about the various capabilities of the instrument, in the perspective of some of the amazing materials we have looked at in our lab since taking delivery of the instrument about 6 months ago. In case you are not familiar, Micro-CT is a non-destructive 3D characterization tool that uses X rays to determine the internal structure of objects through imaging of different densities within the scanned object. High-resolution laboratory-based micro-CT or nano-CT provides image resolution on the order of 300 nm. Such high resolution allows one to visualize the internal 3D structure of fine-scale features.

Micro-CT can serve as a useful tool to screen materials for defects such as cracks, delaminations, and voids from the initial phase of product development to quality control of final part fabrication. It is also widely used in metrology for inspecting components made with additive manufacturing techniques, reverse engineering, and computer-aided design (CAD) modeling. The total scan time is relatively short, depending on the shape and size of the object. Also, compared to other microscopy techniques, the sample preparation required for micro-CT imaging is minimal.

I wanted to share with you two 3D animations of two of the materials discussed in our featured article article. The first video below is a 3D rendering of pores in a carbon-epoxy composite, color coded according to their size. The material has been reduced transparent to show the pores only. The second one shows a few cracks (highlighted in red) in a fractured Ni-based superalloy sample.

Please check out the article and videos and let me know if you have any comments or questions!

- Anjali

The reason for the deep and widespread use of Pi in my work (or the work of any mathematician) is that Pi is a fundamental mathematical building block. In fact it is so fundamental that it pervades human existence as intelligent beings; the number Pi plays an important role in many of the major scientific advances of mankind. In this post, I will present a few mathematical vignettes of Pi, showing how Pi marks major milestones of human intellectual history from antiquity to the present.

1. What is Pi? Existence questions and Euclid
Early on in school, we learn that Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The interesting thing about this is that this ratio is the same for all circles, whether it is as small as a pea or as big as the sun. Although this fact was probably recognized by all the ancient civilizations, its rigorous statement and proof was probably first written by Euclid in his seminal work Elements. So Euclid marks the stage in human civilization by which we were able to prove the existence of Pi.

2. Gregory-Leibniz Series
We now jump several centuries to the period of Issac Newton and his contemporaries. Although various approximations for Pi had been in use for several centuries, this is a period where infinite series were used to provide an exact representation of Pi, as well as derive accurate approximations. One of the most celebrated of these infinite series representations is the following:

This series is called the Gregory-Leibniz series (discovered separately by Gregory in 1671 and Leibniz in 1674), and was also used by Isaac Newton to approximate Pi to 15 digits. This series depends on the Taylor expansion of the function f(x)= arctan (x), and this requires the development of calculus — which is another significant landmark in human intellectual history (for which Newton and Leibniz share credit).

3. Basel Problem and Leonhard Euler
A celebrated question that remained unsolved for almost a century is the Basel problem. It consists of finding the sum of squares of reciprocals of natural numbers (i.e. the right hand side of the equation below):

The interesting point here is that the answer is one-sixth of the square of Pi. This was first discovered by Leonhard Euler in 1735 (and proved rigorously also by Euler in 1741). This surprising connection between the Basel problem and Pi has a very clean modern explanation using Fourier analysis, another major intellectual landmark based on Joseph Fourier’s work on heat conduction in 1822.

4. Squaring the circle, Transcendence of Pi
A classical problem dating to antiquity is the question of squaring the circle. This problem consists of constructing a square equal in area to a given circle using only a straightedge and compass and a finite number of steps. This turned out to be a rather difficult problem that was unsolved until 1882, when Lindemann proved that squaring the circle was impossible. The proof consists of showing that Pi is transcendental, which means that there is no polynomial with rational coefficients whose solution is Pi.

The Lindemann proof and its subsequent generalizations bring us to topics of a very modern flavor in mathematics. For example, the analog of the Lindemann theorem with Pi-adic numbers instead of the usual algebraic numbers is a currently unsolved conjecture.

5. Digital computers and the quest for digits of Pi
The advent of digital computers in the mid twentieth century led to the development of techniques to compute very accurate approximations of Pi. The purpose of these computations was not really for practical applications — it is hard to think of any physical or engineering application that needs more than (say) a hundred digit approximation of Pi for any reason. So the pursuit of computing increasingly accurate rational approximations of Pi is an intellectual exercise for its own sake. John von Neumann used the ENIAC (the first digital computer) to compute over 2000 digits of Pi and subsequent decades of mathematicians and computer scientists have extended this to our current capability of 10 trillion digits.

6. Ramanujan and his goddess
The ingredients for the multi-million digit calculations of Pi  are a combination of iterative algorithms and some truly ingenious infinite series. Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 — 1920) was a self-taught mathematical prodigy who came up with several such series, such as:

Ramanujan produced several diaries of formulae of this kind, in which he simply stated formulae with no proofs or even hints of their justification. These diaries have kept generations of subsequent mathematicians busy in a quest to prove the unproven formulae. They are remarkable for their mathematical depth, insight and beauty. Efforts to prove some of these formulae have led to the development of entirely new areas of mathematics. Ramanujan’s insight is indeed hard to explain – his own explanation of the source of his formulae is that his family goddess Namagiri revealed them to him!

Now that you’ve learned a bit about the history of Pi and why it is so important to my daily life as a mathematician, check out the below video, the first of the sPI CAM series capturing two GE statisticians using Pi to help solve a problem for GE Capital. Later in the day, we’ll be sharing more footage of Pi being used at the research center, captured by the sPI CAM!

Tomorrow on the blog, Andrew Barnes, an applied mathematician, will share with you footage caught on the sPI Cam around how our researchers utilize Pi each day inside the labs. Andrew will also blog about a few mathematical vignettes of Pi, showing how Pi marks major milestones of human intellectual history from antiquity to the present.

But before you go, check out the clip below. As GE’s Stump the Scientist, I have answered many questions from our curious viewers in the social media world for quite some time. In honor of Pi Day, I thought it would be a great chance to turn the (circular) table and ask you a question! You will find my question at the end of the short clip below. And wait… I have more news.

Stump the Scientist is now on twitter to provide you with another outlet to ask me your most pressing scientific questions. We will continue to look at the questions submitted through GE’s Facebook page, as well as those submitted via @StumpScientist and select one to answer in detail through the Stump the Scientist video series! If you know the answer to my Pi related question, please tweet it to @StumpScientist from now until 1:59 p.m. tomorrow. I will review the answers submitted and tweet back to those who provide the best answers!

Happy Pi Day!

- Jim

Events like this are very invigorating to me for several reasons. One highlight of the ARPA-E summit is the slate of interesting speakers that address the crowd. Speakers range from politicians, to researchers, to business leaders. Some of my favorites:

-At the top was T. Boone Pickens, famous for the Pickens Plan. I’ve followed Pickens for years now, and have always resonated with his clarity of thought. He is pushing hard for the U.S. to get a plan for energy, and he is right (“…a fool with a plan is better than a genius with no plan…”). And he has pushed for decades for the U.S. to shift away from imported oil as much as possible, and shift to natural gas as a transportation fuel. If you’ve followed our blogs in the past, you know that we are very bullish on NG vehicles…it’s a personal passion of mine.

-Elon Musk, creator of Pay Pal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX, among others. Elon is such an interesting leader. I appreciate his clear thinking on how to assess a problem on first principles and physics. If this is in conflict with what the world is doing, then you have unearthed an excellent opportunity. Certainly SpaceX follows that pattern.

-Mitch Daniels, former Governer of Indiana, and now president at Purdue. One topic he mentioned is that Purdue has now told its students that they own any inventions they create while at Purdue, rather than the university. This is very different than most universities, which are increasingly active in monetizing the IP of their students and professors. President Daniels’ reasoning is that there is more long-term value in students starting businesses with their IP, rather than the university licensing to others.

There were so many other interesting speakers…hard to pick just three!

Even more important was the opportunity to network with other energy researchers, particularly folks from start-ups. One of the great things about the U.S. is the uncountable number of start-ups, especially in the energy space. I’ve got great researchers with great ideas on my team at GE, but we have the humility to know that for every researcher who works for GE, there are 10,000 who don’t, and many of them have great ideas too! So I’m constantly on the look-out for small businesses with great ideas, many of whom are excited about potentially partnering with GE, with our scale and access to markets. I met dozens of companies, especially in natural gas vehicle technologies; absorption chillers; and energy storage technologies, just to name a few.

Are you part of an energy start-up? If you want to share your idea with us, let me know!

A few members of the GE Team

I have been with GE for 7 years and previously worked at GE Aviation as a program manager for the F404 engine line, and in systems engineering. Before I came to industry, I was an Air Force Officer.

GE has a special focus on the retention of women across the company and across the globe. To that end, data has been collected and sensing surveys have been conducted, to understand what factors make women choose to leave our workforce. There are a few big global themes, but one of the most prominent is flexibility in the workplace.

Flexibility is mysterious to employees and managers alike. We often hear that it makes people really uncomfortable to talk with their managers or HR teams about flexibility options. I personally collected the policies for flexibility for each GE business, so I could compare them. They weren’t too easy to track down, but when I did, I found that there are a large variety of flexible work options to consider and they are consistent across our large company.

Today, we are launching a series called “Flex Ability,” to open up the conversation about why flexibility works and why it is just as easy to talk about flexible work options as it is to talk about the status of a work project.

This topic is not just about being a parent. It is about pursuing another degree, training for a race, taking care of parents, or whatever it is that you want to accomplish. It is about integrating work and life in the most productive way, and taking the taboo away from discussing how to do it.

I may be a good person to start this dialogue. When I started with GE in 2005, I had an infant and two toddlers, and I was a single mother. It never occurred to me to ask for alternative working hours, even though a simple thing like starting the workday at 8:30 am rather than 7:30 am would have eased so much logistical stress at that time.

I put a complex and expensive support structure in place so I could be at the plant during “standard business hours,” even though I often worked at home in the evening anyway. I cannot explain completely why I didn’t discuss a schedule that made more sense with my manager. I liked my then-manager and in reflection, I think he would have been receptive.

In the short video below, I share that I work very differently now, and so does each member of my team. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

In the coming weeks, watch out for other video clips on Flex Ability, from women (and men) around the globe. We all approach it a little differently and you will too, but we want to start sharing our stories about why it makes sense and we hope you will share your story too!

Rebecca