Nano-Net Conference Blog

Discussion Thread for Nano-Net 2008 and Nano Self-Organization Workshop

2008-09-11T11:00:00.005-04:00

Dear All:

We have created a blog thread soliciting questions that would be useful for discussion at the Nano-Net Conference/ Nanosensors Workshop. We will appreciate if you can post a couple of intriguing questions suitable for discussion. We will post the summaries of discussions on the blog. Here is the link to the blog. You can post questions through the Comment Window at the bottom of the blog post.

http://sanjaygoel.wordpress.com/nanosensors/

We look forward to seeing you at the conference/workshop.

Best Wishes,

Sanjay Goel (Nano-Net 2008 Workshop Chair)

Edited Technical Program, Workshop Program Complete

2008-09-01T08:06:00.003-04:00

Please see http://www.nanonets.org/2008/files/Technical_Program_v2.6.pdf for the updated conference program, including the workshop program. Also, see the workshop website at http://www.albany.edu/selforganization for the full program including abstracts and speaker biographies.

~Damira (Nano-Net 2008 Webmaster)

Conference Rate

2008-08-26T08:13:00.002-04:00

The deadline to reserve a hotel room at the conference rate is approaching!

Reserve your room before Wednesday August 27, 2008!

See http://www.nanonets.org/hotelreservation.shtml for more details.

~Damira

Updated Technical Program & Panel Substitution

2008-08-19T08:56:00.003-04:00

An updated version of the Technical Program (version 2.5) has been posted on the Nano-Net 2008 Website at: http://www.nanonets.org/files/Technical_Program_v2.5.pdf

Also, a substitution has been made to the Panel. Prof. Eugenio Culurciello from the ECE Department of Yale University will be replacing Prof. Masud Chowdhury.

~Damira

Technical Program & Presenter Info. Posted

2008-07-22T09:33:00.003-04:00

The draft for the Technical Program has been posted on the Nano-Net 2008 Website at: http://www.nanonets.org/files/Technical_Program_v2.1.pdf including times for workshop and tutorial sessions on the Sunday before the conference (September 14).

Also, we have added a Presenter Info section at: http://www.nanonets.org/presenter.shtml
with guidelines for presenters of full/invited and short papers.

Look forward to seeing you in September!

Submission Details for Camera-Ready Papers

2008-07-21T09:17:00.003-04:00

Submission details are now posted for camera-ready paper versions. Please see the Submission Details section of the site at http://www.nanonets.org/submission.shtml #4 Final Paper Submission for instructions.

Also, registration information will be posted shortly when available.

Tutorial and Panel Updates

2008-07-21T09:13:00.003-04:00

The date and tentative time has been announced for the tutorial Properties and Applications of Carbon Nanotubes and Other 1D Nanostructures held by Dr. Wei Liu. It will be held on Sunday September 14, 2008 from 8:30am - 12pm unless there are future changes. See details at http://www.nanonets.org/tutorial.shtml.

An additional member has been confirmed for the "Using Advanced Micro/Nano-electronic Technology to Establish Neuromorphic Systems" panel chaired by Dr. Wei Wang. The newest addition to the panel is Dr. Shih-Chii Liu, Institute of Neuroinformatics, Zurich, Switzerland. Please see http://www.nanonets.org/panel.shtml for more details.

~Damira (Nano-Net 2008 Webmaster)

American Physical Society Endorsement

2008-07-21T09:12:00.002-04:00

We are happy to announce that the American Physical Society (APS) has endorsed Nano-Net 2008!

Updated Dates & CFP for Nano Self-Organization Workshop & 2-page short papers

2008-07-14T08:19:00.004-04:00

There are updated dates now posted on the Nano-Net 2008 website for the following:

Acceptance Notifications (Regular and Invited Papers) - July 16, 2008
Camera-Ready Versions (All Papers) - August 8, 2008

Please make note of the changes and expect to hear from the committee shortly if you have submitted a regular or invited paper.

Also, please note that there is still some time left to submit a paper to either the nano self-organization workshop or the 2-page short papers for Nano-Net 2008.

Please see the workshop CFP at: http://www.albany.edu/selforganization

~Damira

Wei Wang - Panel Chair and Panel

2008-07-07T09:23:00.000-04:00

We are pleased to announce Wei Wang as Panel Chair for Nano-Net 2008. Dr. Wang is an Assistant Professor and Senior Research Scientist of Nanoscale Engineering with a Ph.D., in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada and a B.S., in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics, Beijing, China. His main research areas include: modeling and simulation of nanoscale devices and interconnects, CMOS-nano hybrid circuits, 3D IC, FPGA and ASIC design.

The panel he will chair is titled, "Using Advanced Micro/Nano-electronic Technology to Establish Neuromorphic Systems Panel" and will include among others, Prof. Grarrett Rose, ECE Department of Polytech University; Dr. Vladimir Gorelik, Founder of Neuronix; Prof. Masud Chowdhury, ECE Department, University of Illinois at Chicago; and Dr. Mathew Hynd, Wadsworth, Albany, NY. Other panelists will be announced as they are confirmed.

To start the panel, several questions will be raised regarding the challenges of designing and building devices, circuits, and systems for neuromorphic applications. Then, each panelist will speak for 10-20 minutes about their perspectives to these challenges. Then, the audiences can ask questions to the panel.

Some of the questions asked will be:

In the device level, what is current research status using the CMOS-related technology (analog or mixed signal) to build neuromorphic systems? What are the main challenges? Can CMOS-nano hybrid approach really be an efficient and feasible approach and show improvement over the CMOS-based neuromorphic systems? Some panelists are using CMOS, some are using nanodevices. They will have different perspectives.

In the circuit level, should we use simplified synapses/neurons (digital multivalue) or complicated analog circuitries? Some panelists are suggesting to use complicated synapses/neurons that really mimick the human system (analog) but are difficult to build. Some panelists are using a binary or mutlivalue digital circuit to build a simplified synapse/neuron.

The panel can discuss these different approaches.

In the system and architecture level, what is the impact of the model, algorithm and architecture of the neuromorphic system impact to the hardware development? Since the real human cortex is a 3D structure, is it necessary to use 3D IC architecture to build such systems?

Paul Bogdan - New TPC Member

2008-07-07T09:17:00.002-04:00

We would like to welcome our newest TPC Member, Paul Bogdan from CMU. Paul Bogdan received his BSc in Automatic Control and Computer Science in 2004 from the Politehnica University of Bucharest, where he was involved in research on control theory and dynamical systems. He was accepted in the PhD program on System Level Design at Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. He is currently exploring the problematics of performance analysis and alternative communication paradigm for Network-on-Chip architecture under the guidance of Prof. Radu Marculescu. Other research interests include the interactions between biological systems and complex network theory, as well as the parallelism between packet dissemination and rumor spreading processes.

ACM SIGARCH & SIGMICRO Technical Sponsors

2008-07-01T10:57:00.004-04:00

We are pleased to announce that ACM SIGARCH and ACM SIGMICRO are now technical sponsors for the conference. So officially:

"Nano-Net '08: 3rd International Conference on Nano-Networks” is held in-cooperation with ACM SIGARCH and SIGMICRO!

~Damira (Nano-Net 2008 Webmaster)

Wei Liu - Tutorial

2008-07-01T10:55:00.001-04:00

Wei Liu will be holding a tutorial during the Nano-Net conference.

Here is the updated biography for Wei Liu. Apparently, there's another Wei Liu in the same department and this is a common confusion, so here's who you'll meet when you attend the conference!

Wei Lu received the B.S. degree in physics from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1996, and the M.A. and Ph.D. in physics from Rice University, Houston, TX in 1999 and 2003, respectively. From 2003 to 2005, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. In 2005, he joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Michigan as an assistant professor. His research interests lie in the application and fundamental understanding of nanostructures and nanodevices, including high-density crossbar memory and logic devices, semiconductor nanowire based transistors and sensors, flexible and transparent thin-film electronics, and nano-electromechanical systems. He has over 20 refereed journal publications and 3 patents, served as a reviewer and on the editorial board for 17 journals, and he is an active member in several international committees worldwide. He is a member of the IEEE, APS, MRS, and a board member of the AVS Michigan Chapter. He received the Wilson Award in 2003.

Also, the abstract and outline for the tutorial are now posted on http://www.nanonets.org/tutorial.shtml

Abstract
One-dimensional nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes and nanowires have attracted considerable interest recently due to their unique electrical and structural properties. In this course, we will discuss some of the most important aspects of CNT based electronics, from the bandstructure to fundamental transport characterizations to high performance transistors. In addition, the one-dimensional systems are attractive to novel architectures such as crossbar memories and logic that offer large connectivity and reconfigurability and are suitable for neuromorphic computing. Several nanotube and nanowire-based crossbar systems will be discussed.
Prerequisites: none

Outline
Part I: Carbon nanotubes:

Brief history
growth techniques
band structure and electrical properties
ballistic waveguides and cables
field-effect transistors
noise in CNT devices
thin-film devices

Part II: CNT and nanowire-based crossbar networks

CNT crossbar memory
nanowires – brief introduction
nanowire two-terminal resistive switches (memristors)
CMOS compatible nano-crossbar systems

Conference Dates Clarification

2008-06-23T09:27:00.004-04:00

Extended Submission Deadline:
June 15, 2008 (Regular/Invited) & July 15, 2008 (2-page Short)

Acceptance Notification:
July 7, 2008 (Regular/Invited) & July 21, 2008 (2-page Short)

Camera-Ready Versions:
July 31, 2008

Nano-Net Conference:
Sept. 15-17, 2008

2 Page Short Papers in Call for Papers

2008-06-09T09:01:00.004-04:00

The call for papers located on http://www.nanonets.org/cfp.shtml now includes 2 page short papers in addition to the 5 page paper submissions and 8 page invited papers submissions. Also, please note the extended deadline of JULY 15, 2008.

~Damira (Nano-Net 2008 Webmaster)

Neil Gershenfeld Keynote Abstract Posted

2008-06-09T08:54:00.004-04:00

As we have posted earlier, we are proud to have Neil Gershenfeld the Director of The Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT as one of our keynote speakers. The abstract for his keynote talk is now available at http://www.nanonets.org/keynote.shtml

TITLE: Programming Bits and Atoms

ABSTRACT: Software has served to isolate programs (and programmers) from knowledge of the underlying physical mechanisms used for computation. However, device scaling is leading to a limit in which the number of information-bearing degrees of freedom becomes comparable to the number of physical ones. At that point it will no longer be possible to distinguish between computer science and physical science, because they will be describing the same attributes. The density, velocity, and interaction of information is coupled by physical law; the same must be true of scalable models for computation and communications. I will explore the benefits of exposing rather than hiding the boundary between bits and atoms, including interdevice internetworking, conformal computing architectures, mathematical programming models, and digital fabrication processes.

Keynote Speaker - Neil Gershenfeld

2008-05-19T08:38:00.008-04:00

We are pleased to announce our newest confirmed keynote speaker, Professor Neil Gershenfeld. NEIL GERSHENFELD is the Director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. His unique laboratory is breaking down boundaries between the digital and physical worlds, from creating molecular quantum computers to virtuosic musical instruments. Technology from his lab has been seen and used in settings including New York's Museum of Modern Art and rural Indian villages, the White House and the World Economic Forum, inner-city community centers and automobile safety systems, Las Vegas shows and Sami herds.

He is the author of numerous technical publications, patents, and books including Fab, When Things Start To Think, The Nature of Mathematical Modeling, and The Physics of Information Technology, and has been featured in media such as The New York Times, The Economist, and the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour.

He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and has been selected as a CNN/Time/Fortune Principal Voice and by Prospect/FP as one of the top 100 public intellectuals.
Dr. Gershenfeld has a BA in Physics with High Honors and an honorary Doctor of Science from Swarthmore College, a Ph.D. from Cornell University, was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows, and a member of the research staff at Bell Labs.

His keynote title and abstract information will be released shortly.

See http://www.nanonets.org/keynote.shtml for more information on our keynotes.

~Damira (Nano-Net Webmaster)

Call for Papers DEADLINE EXTENDED!

2008-05-18T09:25:00.002-04:00

The Call For Papers Deadline has been EXTENDED from May 15, 2008 to June 15, 2008 to allow for additional submissions. Please see http://www.nanonets.org/cfp.shtml for additional details as well as a .doc and plain text version of the CFP. We ask all Technical Program Committee members to advertise the Call For Papers with the new deadline once it is finalized.

~Damira (Nano-Net 2008 Webmaster)

Keynote Tatsuya Suda Presentation Title and Abstract Now Up

2008-05-18T09:22:00.004-04:00

Keynote speaker Tatsuya Suda's presentation title and abstract are now available at: http://www.nanonets.org/keynote.shtml.

Molecular Communication: A New Paradigm for Communication Among Biological Nanomachines

Molecular communication is a new paradigm for nano-scale communication between biological or artificial nanomachines (artificial or biological nano-scale devices that perform simple computation, sensing, or actuation). Molecular communication applies the nano and micro-scale communication mechanisms from biological systems to allow nanomachines to communicate by using molecules as a communication carrier over a short distance.

Nanomachines that communicate may achieve tasks that cannot be accomplished by a single nanomachine and can spur the creation of entirely new applications. Such applications may include distributed computing through communicating nanomachines that function as basic logic gates and human health monitoring through communicating nanomachines that act as implant devices monitoring molecules and conditions in a human body.

The class of molecular communication systems considered in this presentation consists of sender nanomachines, receiver nanomachines, carrier molecules, and the environment that these operate in. Senders and receivers include biological (such as cells) and biologically derived (such as molecular motors or sensors taken from biological systems) nanomachines that are capable of emitting and capturing carrier molecules (such as proteins, ions, or DNA). The environment is the aqueous solution that is typically found within and between cells.

This presentation explains initial ideas for molecular communication. This presentation also covers basic communication processes in molecular communication and key system components that form a molecular communication system. It also illustrates research issues necessary to create molecular communication.

Yaakov (Kobi) Benenson - new TPC member

2008-05-06T11:36:00.002-04:00

We are pleased to announce another TPC member, Yaakov (Kobi) Benenson from Harvard. He has a Ph.D. from the Departments of Computer Science & Applied Mathematics and Biological Chemistry of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. He is involved in the Laboratory for Molecular Automata and the FAS Center for Systems Biology at Harvard University. He is currently the Principal Investigator for a grant titled: "Synthetic implementation of biological control modules" and participates as a program committee member in several conferences including the International Meeting on DNA-Based Computers and the
International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems.

Radisson Hotel Boston - Conference Hotel Chosen

2008-04-28T11:12:00.018-04:00

We are pleased to announce that the conference hotel has been finalized. The location for the conference will be at the Radisson Hotel Boston, in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Radisson Hotel Boston, located in the cultural heart of downtown Boston, is within walking distance of theaters, shopping and many well-known Boston attractions. Guests at the Hotel Boston enjoy easy access to Quincy Market, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Public Garden, Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum and many prime Boston points of interest. The hotel adjoins Little Italy, Chinatown, and the Freedom Trail. There is also a shuttle from the hotel to the Boston airport.

The hotel is a 100% smoke-free facility, and offers the kind of warm hospitality, inviting atmosphere and premier services sure to please business and leisure travelers alike.

The Radisson Hotel Boston offers 356 spacious and comfortable guest rooms. Large work desk, in-room safes and complimentary High-Speed Internet Access in all guest rooms. Each room has a private balcony with inspiring view of downtown Boston.

To ensure you receive the discounted room rates at Radisson Hotel Boston, please book your hotel room by phone at either the phone numbers listed below:

Radisson Worldwide: (800) 333-3333
Reservations/Hotel Line: (617) 482-1800

These rates are guaranteed until August 22, 2008. Make sure you indicate you are from the "Nano-Nets 2008 Group" to receive the discount conference rate of $249 a night for a single/double room. Individuals responsible for making their own reservations will be asked to guarantee for late arrival with a major credit card. Should the individual “not show” or cancel by 4:00 PM one day prior to arrival, the individual’s credit card will be charged, or any deposit will be applied for the first night’s room revenue. Participants are responsible for hotel room charges, tax, and incidental charges.

Conference Hotel Website: http://www.radisson.com/bostonma

Sylvain Martel - Keynote Abstract

2008-04-14T08:27:00.006-04:00

Sylvain Martel's Keynote abstract is now available here and at: http://www.nanonets.org/keynote.shtml.

Keynote Title:
"Towards Intelligent Bacterial Nanorobots Capable of Communicating with the Macro-World"

Keynote Abstract:
The field of nanorobotics defines nanorobots from large robotic platforms capable of nanometer-scale operations to robots with overall dimensions in the nanometer-scale. But because of actual technological constraints, the definition of nanorobots often includes untethered robots with overall dimensions in the micrometer-scale that depend on the integration of nanometer-scale components for the execution of specific tasks. An example is the intracellular magnetite nanoparticles assembled in a chain-like structure and termed magnetosomes embedded in magnetotactic bacteria (MTB).

As demonstrated by our group, this structure allows accurate directional control of these flagellated bacteria by an external computer by exploiting magnetotaxis where a directional torque is induced from local magnetic fields generated with relatively small electrical currents. By controlling a swarm of MC-1 cells, each providing through a pair of flagellated nanomotors thrust forces exceeding 4pN, it becomes possible in an aqueous medium to provide directional control and propulsion to relatively large micro-components and in particular microelectronic integrated circuits (IC) that can provide a level of intelligence to micrometer-scale aqueous robots.

In this talk, we show that it is possible with actual available technologies to implement an intelligent untethered system or robot with overall dimensions of only a few hundreds micrometers capable of communicating to an external computer its directional propulsion requirements based on sensory information collected by the robot itself in order to find a specific target. The talk will not only show examples of computer-controlled bacterial actuation and how it can be exploited to minimize electrical energy requirement for the implementation of smaller untethered robots, but the basic architecture of such intelligent robot will be presented with emphasis on engineering challenges at such a scale.

Among several topics, the talk will propose a new communication paradigm between such nanorobots and external computers, bypassing power and miniaturization limitations of the more traditional communication techniques when implemented at such a scale. Then the presentation will conclude on the possibility of implementing swarms of these intelligent bacterial robots to accomplish more advanced tasks through networked interactions and other techniques including swarm intelligence.

The abstract for Tatsuya Suda's keynote will be coming soon!

~Damira (Nano-Net 2008 Webmaster)

Sylvain Martel - New Keynote Speaker

2008-04-07T09:19:00.002-04:00

We are pleased to announce that Sylvain Martel will be joining Tatsuya Suda as a main keynote speaker for the Nano-Net 2008 Conference.

SYLVAIN MARTEL received a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Montréal, Canada, in 1997. Following postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was appointed Research Scientist at the BioInstrumentation Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. From Feb. 2001 to Sept. 2004, he had dual appointments at MIT and as Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal (EPM), Campus of the University of Montréal, Montréal, Canada. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Engineering and the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, and Director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory at EPM that he founded in 2002.Dr. Martel holds the Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Micro/Nanosystem Development, Fabrication and Validation since 2001. He has over 120 refereed publications, several patents, gives several invited presentations annually, and he is an active member in many international committees and organizations worldwide. Dr. Martel’s main expertise is in the field of nanorobotics, micro- and nano-systems, and the development of novel instrumented platforms and a variety of related support technologies targeted mainly for biomedical and bioengineering applications, and nanotechnology. He has a vast experience in electronics, computer engineering, and also worked extensively in biomedical and mechanical engineering.

Presently, Dr. Martel leads a multidisciplinary team involved in research and development of new instrumented platforms mainly for the medical field and in bioengineering, such as 1) development of nano-factories based on a fleet of scientific instruments configured as autonomous miniature robots capable of high throughput screening in biotechnology and autonomous operations at the molecular scale, 2) developmenet of minimally invasive tools based on microdevices propelled in the blood vessels by magnetic gradients generated by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) systems for tumor targeting and other applications, 3) development of biosensors designed to be navigated through the blood vessels that could potentially be targeted at the brain for non-invasive recording and imaging of brain activities with high spatial resolution, and 4)development of various microsystems using and integrating magnetotactic bacteria as computer controlled functional components for various applications including but not limited to the fast detection of pathogenic bacteria and as bio-carriers for drug delivery in cancer therapy.

~Damira (Nano-Net Webmaster)

Wei Wang - New TPC Member

2008-04-07T08:12:00.004-04:00

We are pleased to annouce our new Technical Program Committee member, Wei Wang from the University at Albany, State University of New York College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering. He received his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada in 2002 and is currently an Assistant Professor.

His research interests include modeling and simulation of nanoscale devices and interconnects, CMOS-nano hybrid circuits, 3D IC, FPGA and ASIC design, and computer arithmetic and cryptography. Dr. Wang has over 90 journal and conference publications and two US patents. He is an editor of Journal of Computer Science and Technology and Journal of Computers and was a Section Chair of IWSOC04 and SPND 2004 conferences and also served at the technical committee of IEEE IWSOC 04, Great Lake VLSI 2005, 2007, ISCAS 2007, 2008 and NanoArch 2008 conferences.

Dr. Wang is also a member of IEEE. He is a technical committee (TC) member of IEEE Nano and Giga TC and IEEE VLSI System Design TC. He served as a panelist for NSF NIRT program. He was the executive committee member of IEEE Central Indiana Section and helped organize IEEE Indiana Workshop in June 2006.

~Damira (Nano-Net Webmaster)

Tatsuya Suda - Keynote Speaker

2008-03-17T12:04:00.005-04:00

We are pleased to announce that Tatsuya Suda from UC Irvine and NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (who is also a member of the Nano-Net Organizing Committee) has agreed to present one of the keynote addresses for the conference this year.

TATSUYA SUDA received the B.E., M.E., and Dr.E. degrees in applied mathematics and physics from Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, in 1977, 1979, and 1982, respectively. From 1982 to 1984, he was with the Department of Computer Science, Columbia University, New York, as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Since 1984, he has been with the Department of Information and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, where he is currently a Professor. He has also served as a program director of the Networking Research Program at the National Science Foundation from Oct. '96 through Jan., '99. He received an IBM postdoctoral fellowship in 1983. He was the Conference Coordinator from 1989 to 1991, the Secretary and Treasurer from 1991 to 1993, the Vice Chairman from 1993 to 1995, and the Chairman from 1995 to 1997 of the IEEE Technical Committee on Computer Communications.

He was also the director of the U.S. Society Relations of the IEEE Communications Society from 1997 to 1999. He is an editor of the IEEE/ACM Transaction on Networking, a senior technical consultant to the IEEE Transaction on Communications, a former Editor of the IEEE Transaction on Communications and is an Area Editor of the International Journal of Computer and Software Engineering. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopedia of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Wiley and Sons. He was the Chair of the 8th IEEE Workshop on Computer Communications and the TPC co-chair of the IEEE Infocom 97. He was a visiting associate professor at the University of California, San Diego, a Hitachi Professor at the Osaka University and currently is a NTT Research Professor.

He has been engaged in research in the fields of computer communications and networks, high speed networks, multimedia systems, ubiquitous networks, distributed systems, object oriented communication systems, network applications, performance modeling and evaluation, and application of biological concepts to networks and network applications. Dr. Suda is a fellow of IEEE and a member of ACM.

Stay tuned for a release of the title and abstract for his talk.

~Damira (Nano-Net Webmaster)