Mechanical engineering

Development

...and moving mechanisms, machines, and robots.

Applications of mechanical engineering are found in the records of many ancient and medieval societies throughout the globe. In ancient Greece, the works of Archimedes (287 BC–212 BC) and Heron of Alexandria (10–70 AD) deeply influenced mechanics in the Western tradition. In China, Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) improved a water clock and invented a seismometer, and Ma Jun (200–265 AD) invented a chariot with differential gears. The medieval Chinese horologist and engineer Su Song (1020–1101 AD) incorporated an escapement mechanism into his astronomical clock tower two centuries before any escapement could be found in clocks of medieval Europe, as well as the world's first known endless power-transmitting chain drive.^[1]

During the years from 7th to 15th century, the era called islamic golden age, there have been remarkable contributions from Muslims in the field of mechanical technology, Al Jaziri, who was one of them wrote his famous "Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices" in 1206 presented many mechanical designs. He is also considered to be the inventor of such mechaincal devices which now form the very basic of mechanisms, such as crank and cam shafts.

During the early 19th century in England and Scotland, the development of machine tools led mechanical engineering to develop as a separate field within engineering, providing manufacturing machines and the engines to power them.^[2] The first British professional society of mechanical engineers was formed in 1847, thirty years after civil engineers formed the first such professional society.^[3] In the United States, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) was formed in 1880, becoming the third such professional engineering society, after the American Society of Civil Engineers (1852) and the American Institute of Mining Engineers (1871).^[4] The first schools in the United States to offer an engineering education were the United States Military Academy in 1817, an institution now known as Norwich University in 1819, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1825. Education in mechanical engineering has historically been based on a strong foundation in mathematics and science.^[5]

Field of mechanical engineering is normally considered broadest of all engineering desciplines. Work of mechanical engineering can be seen from the bottom of the oceans to the farthest boundaries of space which man has ever been able to reach.

[edit] Education

Degrees in mechanical engineering are offered at universities worldwide. In China, India, and North America, mechanical engineering programs typically take four to five years and result in a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc), Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech), Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng), or Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc) degree, in or with emphasis in mechanical engineering. In Spain, Portugal and most of South America, where neither BSc nor BTech programs have been adopted, the formal name for the degree is "Mechanical Engineer", and the course work is based on five or six years of training.

In the U.S., most undergraduate mechanical engineering programs are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) to ensure similar course requirements and standards among universities. The ABET web site lists 276 accredited mechanical engineering programs as of June 19, 2006.^[6] Mechanical engineering programs in Canada are accredited by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB),^[7] and most other countries offering engineering degrees have similar accreditation societies.

Some mechanical engineers go on to pursue a postgraduate degree such as a Master of Engineering, Master of Science, Master of Engineering Management (MEng.Mgt or MEM), a Doctor of Philosophy in engineering (EngD, PhD) or an engineer's degree. The master's and engineer's degrees may or may not include research. The Doctor of Philosophy includes a significant research component and is often viewed as the entry point to academia.^[8]

[edit] Coursework

Standards set by each country's accreditation society are intended to provide for uniformity in fundamental subject material, promote competence among graduating engineers, and to maintain confidence in the engineering profession as a whole. Engineering programs in the U.S., for instance, are required by ABET to show that their students can "work professionally in both thermal and mechanical systems areas."^[9] The specific courses required to graduate, however, may differ from program to program. Universities will often combine multiple subjects into a single class or split a subject into multiple classes, depending on the faculty available and the university's major area(s) of research. Fundamental subjects of mechanical engineering usually include:

• statics and dynamics
• strength of materials and solid mechanics
• instrumentation and measurement
• thermodynamics, heat transfer, energy conversion, and HVAC
• fluid mechanics and fluid dynamics
• mechanism design (including kinematics and dynamics)
• manufacturing technology or processes
• hydraulics and pneumatics
• engineering design
• mechatronics and control theory
• drafting, CAD (usually including solid modeling), and CAM^[10][11]

Mechanical engineers are also expected to understand and be able to apply basic concepts from chemistry, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, and physics. Most mechanical engineering programs include several semesters of calculus, as well as advanced mathematical concepts which may include differential equations and partial differential equations, linear and modern algebra, and differential geometry, among others.

In addition to the core mechanical engineering curriculum, many mechanical engineering programs offer more specialized programs and classes, such as robotics, transport and logistics, cryogenics, fuel technology, automotive engineering, biomechanics, vibration, optics and others, if a separate department does not exist for these subjects.^[12]

Most mechanical engineering programs also require varying amounts of research or community projects to gain practical problem-solving experience. Mechanical engineering students usually hold one or more internships while studying, though this is not typically mandated by the university.

Making Sense of HCS Information

Obtaining Relevant Contextual and Physiological Data from Individual Cells

Lakshmi Kamath, Ph.D.

The pressure during drug discovery to detect failure compounds earlier and at decreased cost has increased the relevance of high-content screening (HCS), according to scientists who will be presenting papers at the upcoming Cambridge Healthtech Conference, “High-Content Screening and Analysis,” in San Francisco. More and more, HCS is being used to assess the impact of phenotypic and cellular changes that are brought about by gene modification or drug/compound treatment. HCS, when combined with ADMETox studies, can provide a lot of useful and detailed information in a cellular and physiologically relevant context. The development and availability of sophisticated instruments, automated data capture, and analysis software and multiplexed assay chemistry in the past few years have aided the explosion in HCS. Some of these advancements will be discussed at the San Francisco conference. “The genomics era was focused on genome sequencing and functional genomic studies with the attendant proteomic analysis. Tools and technologies were scaled to accommodate this functional and high-throughput approach. Now there is a definite shift to a systems biology era where the focus is on biology and cellular systems. With systems biology gaining importance, tools are needed to obtain relevant contextual and physiological information from individual cells. Thus, high-content imaging tools are becoming increasingly relevant,” says Philip G. Vanek, Ph.D, director of marketing at BD Biosciences(www.bd.com). Dr. Vanek will present a seminar at the conference on how BD is enabling discovery through its live-cell confocal automated bio-imaging (BD Pathway™ 435 and 855) platform offering. “The BD Pathway systems were designed to explore the context of living cells and address unmet needs such as automation and advanced image-analysis software. The BD Pathway 435 allows confocal imaging of cells and tissues with high optical precision and exploration of cells accurately on an XYZ plane. The 435 system targets the end-point assay-market segment. One can run multiplexed experiments with fluorescent antibodies and/or dyes followed by rapid and sequential analysis. A unique feature is that the optics move and hence can be used for study of suspension as well as adherent cells,” says Dr. Vanek. The BD Pathway 855 is a fully automated live-cell confocal imaging workstation. It includes all the features of the BD Pathway 435 and offers complete environmental control and fluidics capability, allowing the researcher to study the dynamics of living cells. A binocular eyepiece and 16 excitation filters provide added flexibility to the instrument platform. “These systems are being utilized by researchers to do live-cell kinetic imaging, study cell invasion, and run novel angiogenesis and neurite outgrowth assays, among other applications,” adds Dr. Vanek. Dr. Vanek will also discuss the company’s bioimaging certified reagents that have been qualified for use in high-content and microscopy applications. These reagents are built upon BD Biosciences Pharmingen’s antibodies, a number of which have been conjugated to Alexa dyes for multiplexing experiments and can be used directly for cell-imaging applications.

GPCR Analysis

Intracellular calcium assays have become the industry standard for screening compound libraries in GPCR studies. The Fluorescent Imaging Plate Reader (FLIPR) to monitor calcium mobilization from Molecular Devices (www.moleculardevices.com) is widely used in primary screens. The Molecular Devices Transfluor assay is used to assess b-arrestin recruitment during the GPCR receptor desensitization. Transfluor directly visualizes the intracellular localization of b-arrestin, making it a universal assay for GPCRs, and thus complements HTS calcium-mobilization assays. Molecular Devices will discuss the advantages of running the FLIPR and Transfluor assays as a combination assay using the same cells in the same well. A key feature of combining the two assays is that it is homogenous. Cells are labeled with the calcium and Transfluor reagent prior to the experiment. The calcium flux is measured first on live cells using FLIPR. The cells are fixed, following the calcium-flux measurement, and the Transfluor response can be analyzed at a later time. “Our combination assay allows us to study the activation and desensitization biology of the same receptor in one single assay,” explains Pierre Turpin, Ph.D., product application scientist at Molecular Devices. This combination assay approach was validated with a study using the Library of Pharmaceutically Active Compounds (LOPAC1280) to screen for agonists or antagonists of the Angiotensin Receptor. “The overlap between the compounds identified in the FLIPR assay and the Transfluor assay corresponds to the real hits to follow up on. This assay can greatly help decrease the cost and increase the speed of the compound characterization process,” says Dr. Turpin. The FLIPR response was measured on the Molecular Devices’ FLIPRtetra, Transfluor response was imaged with the ImageXpressMICRO system, image analysis was performed with MetaXpress data-analysis software, and multiparameter analysis was performed using Molecular Devices’ AcuityXpress cellular informatics software. Ger Brophy, Ph.D., general manager of discovery sciences at GE Healthcarewww.gehealthcare.com), discussed the use of high-content analysis to study radiation-induced changes in non-small-cell-lung carcinoma (NSCLC). “Radiotherapy treatment, in the form of ionizing radiation to kill tumors, is often administered on drug-resistant tumors. Often times, NSCLCs with the same histology exhibit differential radioresponses to ionizing radiation. Recent discoveries, performed by our collaborators at University of Texas, indicate that a mutation in a tyrosine kinase domain (TKD) of an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene, in certain subsets of NSCLCs, increase tumor responsiveness to the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib. ( “However, the effects of ionizing radiation on EGFR-expressing tumors were not known. We performed a study to look at the effects of ionizing radiation on EGFR-expressing (mutant and nonmutant EGFR) NSCLC cell lines. This study correlated the presence of such mutations to NSCLC ionizing radiation sensitivity,” explains Dr. Brophy. A typical approach for such a study would have involved multiple steps and assays such as irradiation of a wide range of cell lines, several end-point assays to assess effect of ionizing stimuli, tedious individual microscopic analysis, and flow-cytometry experiments. “We conducted the study with GE’s high-content IN Cell Analyzer 1000, which allowed us to integrate all these different assays onto one platform. Nineteen different EGFR-expressing cell lines were treated with multiple configurations of ionizing radiation on a microtiter plate and analyzed with the IN Cell Analyzer 1000. Several endpoints such as surviving cell numbers, morphological changes, BrdU incorporation (to assess proliferation), and mitotic index were assayed,” explains Dr. Brophy. The IN Cell Analyzer 1000 has a high-resolution automated microsope and offers multiple objectives, filter sets, multiplex analysis capability, and environmental liquid-handling control on deck, so cells can be studied live (in-cell). Effects of stimuli can be directly monitored on the instrument deck. The analyzer is also coupled to a high-powered IN Cell Investigator image analysis software and Spotfire® data-visualization software so data can be analyzed in a rapid manner, according to the company. “The IN Cell Analyzer is ideal for conducting complex multiparametric pharmacogenomics study. It is critical to have the pharmacogenomic profile of a drug mapped out at times of market launch. Such studies can also be translated into modifying radiotherapy in sub populations of patients who may have resistant or non-resistant strain of NSCLC,” says Dr. Brophy.

Cellular Technologies

PerkinElmer (www.perkinelmer.com) plans to enter the HCS-provider arena with a suite of offerings. Their entry will be enabled by their acquisition of Evotec Technologieswww.evotec-technologies.com). Evotec currently provides systems for confocal imaging, cell handling, ultra-high throughput screening (uHTS), as well as image capture and cellular analysis software. ( “PerkinElmer already offers a variety of cellular science platforms such as the CellLux (an automated cellular fluorescence imaging platform), LumiLux™ (automated cellular luminescence imaging platform), and assay chemistries. These plate readers are complementary with Opera™ and Acapella™, a confocal imaging system and sophisticated imaging software, respectively, both of which will be acquired through Evotec Technologies. The combination of these systems significantly boosts the number of applications that PerkinElmer can serve in cellular screening,” says Mary Duseau, business unit leader for detection and analysis systems at PerkinElmer. Other technologies of interest are the microchannel flowthrough device, which is essentially a cell processor with dielectric elements. It allows individual cells to flow through the system and be imaged. This device also enables localization studies in live cells. “Customers are looking to add cellular capability to their existing HTS setup. We will be able to offer the EVOscreen® uHTS system, which has the ability to integrate multiple platforms and is amenable to HCS,” adds Duseau. HCS can provide a lot of useful information if one can effectively sift through and analyze the enormous amount of data generated from such screens. Charles Y. Tao, Ph.D., laboratory head of genome and proteome sciences at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Researchwww.novartis.com), describes data analysis strategies for high-content screening. “High-content screens result in a huge amount of data. For example, a whole- genome (comprised of about 25,000 genes) screen with a simple reporter gene assay would typically result in 50,000 data points per screen. These data points contain only the intensity information. ( “However, a whole-genome screen with the HCS approach could potentially result in billions of data points per screen after image quantification. The data overload is often a bottleneck, and it is critical to have effective data-analysis strategies in place,” comments Dr. Tao. He developed a data-analysis platform at Novartis to address this problem. The goal is to mine HCS data for information relevant to drug discovery using various statistical and bioinformatic approaches and to ensure the quality of data. “We perform data analysis at every stage of our HCS campaign. The first step is quality control and data normalization based on preselected parameters. This is an often ignored aspect of data analysis. Errors are detected and systematic errors are corrected, if possible. “At the second step, we apply various statistical methods to analyze the data. For example, in a cell-cycle study, machine-learning approaches are taken to classify the millions of cells into the different phases of the cell cycle in order to generate a cell-cycle profile for each gene or compound, while in a nuclear translocation study, dose-response profiles are generated. Finally, bioinformatic methods, such as pathway analysis, are applied to further prioritize the hits,” explains Dr. Tao. As a case-study example, Dr. Tao will discuss a whole-genome HCS. With the data-analysis platform, “we were able to identify both known and new cell-cycle regulators,” says Dr. Tao. Kenny Guo, research scientist in the applied genomics department at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute (www.bms.com), will discuss strategies to effectively streamline and analyze the complex and high-volume data that is generated by HCS. Bristol-Myers Squibb conducts high-content screening for target validation, compound-library screening, and determination of compound mechanism of action. “Our high-content screens are run using a high-resolution, fluorescent-based imaging system. Cells are labeled and assayed for multiple endpoints. The output combines numeric and image-based data. For example, if we run a four-channel assay with three primary measurements per channel and 1,000 cells per well, the resultant twelve combinations generate 12,000 data points from a single well. When you add in the image data at ten images per well (1,000 images per plate), the final output can easily reach a million data points from a single 96-well plate,” says Guo. “To deal with this type of high-volume data, we use an integrated system that is based on a company-wide database. This database is built upon scanned data and results data. It starts with a hierarchical storage system for images and a relational database for numeric results. This data is linked to a data-management system. “Data annotation and data QC are then conducted in an automated fashion within the data-management system. Customized tools are used to rank and sort the potential hits. This data is then published for company-wide use. The data-management system is also integrated into data-visualization and -analysis software tools to maximize efficiency and productivity,” explains Guo. An example apoptosis study, conducted with multiple markers to delineate the molecular mechanisms of compound cytotoxicity, will be presented at the conference. Also scheduled to talk at the Cambridge Healthtech Conference, Steven Suchyta, Ph.D., technical specialist at Ambion (www.ambion.com), an Applied Biosystemswww.appliedbiosystems.com) business, says he will describe how the R&D group used targeted siRNAs to alter survivin expression. A series of biochemical and cell-based assays were performed on the transfected cells to assess known indicators of apoptosis to better understand the role of survivin in cancer. (

Elucidating Gene Function

“Survivin (BIRC5) is a 17-kDa bifunctional protein that plays critical roles in the regulation of both cell division and survival. Survivin expression is linked to a broad range of cancers,” says Dr. Suchyta. Ambion’s Silencer® Pre-designed siRNAs targeting survivin were first evaluated for silencing using TaqMan® Gene Expression Assays from Applied Biosystems. “It is important to always include more than one siRNA per target gene in a study to rule out results caused by non-specific effects,” notes Dr. Suchyta. Thus, two siRNAs that effectively silenced survivin expression were chosen to proceed. These validated siRNAs were then used to study the functional effects of survivin down regulation in HeLa cells. Apoptosis was assessed by monitoring cell survival/proliferation, nuclear condensation and chromosomal fragmentation, phosphatidyl serine externalization, and caspase activation. The magnitude of the induced biological effects was correlated with that of siRNA-induced silencing at the mRNA and protein levels using a timecourse study. “Together, the data indicates that reduction of survivin protein levels induced apoptosis-related events, although it failed to activate pro-caspase-3,” notes Dr. Suchyta. Two key challenges in high-content analysis are how to analyze the data and how to effectively use the information obtained from the HCS. “For example, the apoptosis assay results in a cell death number, but also provides additional information such as caspase activation, membrane integrity, and morphological changes,” says Donald Jackson, Ph.D., senior research investigator at Bristol-Myers Squibb. “The challenge at the end of the day is to determine which of these treatments is killing the cells and makes sense of the additional data in a contextual manner. In spite of these obvious challenges, the biggest benefit of HCS is that one can detect patterns and exclude artifacts to generate a truly valuable data set.”

Sosial engineering akses masuk bandara*

October 17, 2007 in ICT

Adakalanya pada saat mudik seperti ini anda memerlukan bantuan sanak sodara untuk mengangkat barang-barang bawaan sampai ke depan check-in point, kadang saking sayangnya anda juga ingin di antar sampai ruang tunggu, atau ada yang sekedar iseng saja ingin melihat isi bandara seperti apa. Yang jelas jangan gunakan cara ini untuk hal-hal yang sia-sia atau merugikan orang lain.

Saat ini hampir semua penerbangan menggunakan sistem ticketing yang mereka sebut e-Ticketing, walau sesungguhnya ga bener2 full e-Ticketing, karena anda harus tetap membawa kupon terbang untuk melewati beberapa pintu hingga sampai di dalam pesawat. Dan pada masa peralihan ini juga ada banyak celah yang bisa di manfaatkan, salah satunya mendapatkan izin akses untuk masuk ke ruang tunggu pertama (check-in point)

Ada beberapa penerbangan yang bisa dipakai untuk melakukan hal ini, kita ambil contoh saja Mandala dan Garuda. OK, mari kita mulai. Untuk Mandala, silahkan pergi ke http://book.mandalaair.com daftar dan lakukan sign in ke sistem e-Ticketing-nya, pilih jadwal penerbangan sesuai dengan bandara yang ingin anda masuki pada hari / tanggal yang sesuai pula dengan waktu yang anda kehendaki (jangan dodol dengan memilih tanggal yang sudah lewat), lakukan proses pembelian sampai dengan muncul borang “itenary” atau e-Ticketing sementara (karena ga bisa di pake buat terbang soalnya belum di bayar), didalam borang itu jelas tertulis nama (sesuai KTP), tanggal dan rute terbang yang di inginkan. Cetak borang tiket tersebut di selembar kertas, bisa kertas A4 biasa, atau untuk lebih meyakinkan cetak di kertas rangkap (karbonasi) untuk printer dot matrix (yang biasa dipake travel2 agent).

Pada waktu yang telah di tetapkan, lebih bagus lagi mepet 45-30 menit sebelum keberangkatan (bisa di pake sebagai alasan anda terburu-buru harus check-in) bawa borang tiket tersebut (jangan lupa siapkan KTP yang sesuai dengan nama tercetak, ga perlu di sertakan, tapi siapkan saja siapa tau di minta petugasnya). Buat seolah-olah anda terburu-buru untuk masuk ke dalam ruang check-in, namun tetap tenang ketika ada di depan petugas pemeriksaan tiket, kadang ada beberapa petugas yang hanya cukup melihat kertas anda ditangan (walau terlipat), kadang ada petugas meminta untuk di berikan & di cek, ada pula yang sampai meminta KTP, namun intinya banyak yang belum tau bagaimana memverifikasi sebuah borang e-Ticketing Mandala itu sudah di bayar atau belum

Penerbangan ke-2 adalah Garuda, yang konon merupakan penerbangan kelas-1. Syarat nya anda harus sudah pernah memiliki borang e-Ticketing garuda, silahkan di “scan & OCR kan ke dokumen text“atau di ketik ulang, kemudian sesuaikan tanggal dan rute terbang bandara yang hendak di masuki, jangan lupa nama yang tertulis harus sesuai dengan KTP, setelah itu cetak seperti cara sebelumnya. Dan laksanakan uji coba di hari yang sesuai dengan jadwal terbang yang tercetak

*Cara ini sudah di coba semua oleh penulis dan berhasil (tentu saja dengan menyiapkan cadangan tiket flight sesungguhnya, jaga-jaga k’lo2 sampe ketahuan) dan mohon untuk yang ingin mencobanya dapat melihat kembali urgensi dan kenyamanan orang lain, dan kegagalan bukan menjadi tanggungan penulis :p nantikan tulisan cara masuk ke ruang tunggu keberangkatan

Object Orientation & Information Engineering:

by David C. Hay

Published: December 1, 1998

This is the first in a series of articles on the relationship between the object-oriented approach to system development and the information engineering approach it appears to be replacing.

This is the first in a series of articles on the relationship between the object-oriented approach to system development and the information engineering approach it appears to be replacing. Look for additional articles in this series in future issues of The Data Administration Newsletter.

The world's bookstores are now full of books concerned with "object-oriented analysis". Is it possible that the world of object-orientation has completely changed the nature of systems analysis? To listen to some of its aficionados, this must indeed be true. Information Engineering is passé, and has been completely replaced by object-oriented analysis. (1)

James Rumbaugh and his colleagues wrote one of the seminal books on analysis in the object-oriented world. (2) To their credit, they never used the expression "object-oriented analysis". They simply made analysis an important step in the object-oriented development process – as well they should have. The problem was that they then asserted that it was object-orientation that first made analysis data-centric (3), which is not the case. (Entity modeling has been around since 1977.) This attitude has had the unfortunate effect of permitting the object-oriented world to assume that any analysis that uses models of data structure is inherently "object-oriented". This then forms the basis for asserting that the old way of doing things is now completely invalid.

For an entire body of knowledge that has developed over twenty years or more to be summarily overturned by a new approach seems unlikely. This has never happened before, and it is difficult to believe that it has happened now.

More likely is the possibility that the object-oriented folks have added something to the body of knowledge. Perhaps, in addition to its contributions to design and programming, the object-oriented world has something to contribute to the field of analysis. Or perhaps not.

While object-oriented analysis has been offered as a fundamentally new way of doing analysis, what is really new is that this version of analysis contains elements specifically oriented toward the implementation of systems using object-oriented technology.

To understand why this is misguided, it is necessary to understand John Zachman's "Framework for Information System Architecture".

The Zachman Framework

By 1989, even though the industry was awash with methodologies, modeling notations, and different ways to "communicate" with each other, we in fact rarely communicated very well at all – with each other or with our clients. In response, John Zachman came up with some important insights, and from them developed his "Framework for Information Systems Architecture" (4). Among other things, Mr. Zachman realized that a source of our communications problems was that each of us views the problem of information system development from a quite different point of view. Mr. Zachman's recognition of these points of view was important, because it finally clarified why it is that we have such difficulty talking to each other. In particular, he identified six different perspectives in any system development project:

• Scope – The understanding of why the organization exists, how it is like other organizations in the same industry, and what makes it distinctive.
• Business owner's view – This refers to the perspective not of the stockholders, but of the people who operate the business. This encompasses all the jargon of the business, as well as an understanding of how everything actually works.
• Architect's view – Recognition that there are fundamental, technologically-independent structures present, and representation of the business in terms of these structures.
• Designer's view – The application of technology to address any information system requirements discovered in the views above. The perspective here is technological: relational data base systems, object orientation, network protocols, and so forth.
• Builder's view – This is the view of the inside of the programs and technology. The builder knows the finer points of the programming language, or the communications technology, or whatever.
• Production view – The view of the completed system.

If two people are coming at the problem from different perspectives, their language and terms of reference will be different, and they will be working at cross purposes, unless they recognize the differences in their points of view – and translate. With the translation it becomes clear to both why they believe what they do – and it becomes clear that, as long as they recognize and respect each other's positions, this doesn't matter. Each has a different job to do, and each's perspective is appropriate to the carrying out of those jobs.

Note that this is not an argument for the "waterfall approach" to developing systems. The waterfall addresses the perspectives in sequence: first, strategy addresses scope; then, analysis deals with the business owner's and architect's views; later, design captures the designer's view; and so forth. But this is not necessary. If you choose to start with design, you may do so. The Framework simply tells you what it is you don't know when you do that. That is, you don't know the business owner's perspective, so you will have to guess at what the system is to do. You don't know the architect's perspective, so you will have to cobble the system together as best you can, without benefit of any understanding of fundamental structures.

Are you willing to risk the consequences of not knowing those things? If so, go right ahead.

If you decide to do a little bit of analysis, followed by a little bit of design, and then return to analysis, that's fine. Again, it's your choice. You can now understand the shortcuts you are taking and the potential costs of those shortcuts. If you decide to do analysis and design at the same time, the Zachman view simply requires that you recognize you are dealing with two perspectives at once, and you must be willing to accept the implications of this.

What OO Misses

The Zachman Framework now makes it possible to describe what is wrong with the object-oriented world's approach to analysis. Specifically, object-oriented analysis begins with a cross between the business owner's view and the designer's view, moves directly to the designer's view, and never addresses the architect's view at all.

Yes, Grady Booch specifically describes the importance of architecture, saying that "A system with sound architecture is one that has conceptual integrity and, as Brooks firmly states "conceptual integrity is the most important consideration in system design." (5) (6) It is also true that Mr. Rumbaugh and his colleagues devote a large part of their book to analysis, but if you look at the details of how object-orientated analysis is too often carried out, you can see that architecture – based on the architecture of the enterprise to be served – gets pretty short shrift, on both the function and data side of the effort.

Functions

A popular technique in the object-oriented world is "use cases". These are represented as diagrams of specific anecdotes offered by people in the business being examined. They are supposed to describe the specific activities carried out by an individual. As such they should be effective at capturing the business owner's view.

As it happens, however, they don't actually do that.

"A use case diagram provides a functional description of a system and its major processes and places a boundary on the problem to be solved. It also provides a graphic description of who willcan expect to have with the system." (7) [Emphasis added.] use the system and what kinds of interactions they

Note that a use case describes a future "system", not the existing enterprise. Moreover, it is about a future world when a new system will make all the business person's problems magically disappear. A use case does not actually describe the physical world presently experienced by the user. ("There are five copies of a purchase order and the gold one goes to accounting".) Instead, it describes a job in terms of the technology anticipated for the system (complete – in 1998 – with lap-top computers and web access (8). Rather than describing the current business, it describes an imagined system – one that hasn't even been designed yet.

It is the beginning of a user-interface design. That's all.

As it happens, many of the business processes observed by the analyst are not really intended to carry out the functions of the business at all. They are only there to accommodate inadequacies in current systems. Instead of trying to automate these processes, we should be trying to eliminate them. Instead of trying to do that, we should be asking, what is the business trying to accomplish with these processes the analyst sees? What are the underlying functions to be carried out? What are the "essential" processes (without regard for the technology that might be used) required to carry out the functions the business wants to do? How can technology bring us closer to providing the true functions of the business?

These questions are never asked.

Even if the use cases could be used to infer something about the current nature of business systems, developers then typically go from this supposedly business owner's view directly to the designer's view. There is often no attempt to examine the set of use cases either to determine which should be automated or to identify general patterns of behavior or underlying functional structures. Nor is there provision for analyzing a set of use cases to make sure that they neither overlap nor leave out important activities.

Data

If the object-oriented approach doesn't come to grips with the underlying functions of an enterprise, what about its data? Unfortunately, to the extent that it is done, data analysis typically only addresses the objects seen by the users, without trying to understand their inherent structure.

First of all, since object-oriented technology does not require normalization, this step is often skipped, precluding development of a sound understanding of the underlying structure of the data involved.

When Dr. Codd invented the relational model, and with it "normalization", the idea was that the normalization techniques were required to make relational databases work. With the appearance of object-oriented database technology, presumably normalization is no longer required.

This would be true, except for the fact that the advent of normalization had a much more profound effect on the industry than the mere facilitation of relational databases: it has helped us systematically to eliminate data redundancy, and, more importantly, to better understandnature of data. Each datum in an enterprise is about something – and only one thing. Our job as data analysts is to determine what that thing is. Moreover, there is only one datum that is that fact about that thing, and we must determine where to put that fact so it can be found again. the

If we don't correctly identify the relationship between data and the things they describe, we haven't done our job.

A second problem with the object-oriented approach to data is that it tends to identify object classes simply from the use cases, as the objects seen by the potential system users. This approach fails to ask an important question: What are the fundamental things of significance to the business, of which the things most people see are but examples? The business objects described in use cases are those that the individual sees in his own area of activity. Different individuals may be perceiving what are really the same objects, but with different names and characteristics.

Consider the following classes identified in use cases:

• Employees
• Customers
• Vendors
• Clients
• Departments

Are not all these things simply instances of "parties" (people and organizations) in different roles? Indeed will not many parties play several of these roles? Can an employee not also be a customer? What about vendors who are also clients? Do we want to record each of these occurrences separately?

Going beyond the boundaries of the enterprise itself, are there not similarities between the fundamental structure of this enterprise and those of other enterprises in the same or different industries?

Object-orientation is supposed to promote re-use: the place to start should be in the identification of standard entity/object models for standard business situations. (9)

In fairness, many object-oriented people have acknowledged the importance of understanding common structures while doing requirements analysis (10), and at least one book has now taken up the issue of doing a proper conceptual architecture (11) (12), but these views are not reflected in a large part of the literature.

To summarize, in ignoring the architectural view, many object-oriented practitioners fail to ensure that they are addressing the entire enterprise. They fail to examine the organization as a whole and to understand fundamental structures and processes – those which cut across the views of the individuals who run the business. There is no attempt to understand those structures which will exist regardless of any technology employed to deal with them.

Yes, it seems to be true that object-oriented programming makes it easy to change a design when something turns out to be wrong. But this approach to analysis will guarantee that there are a lot more wrong things to fix than would be the case if some architectural thought were given to the system before it was designed.

Conclusions

It has been difficult to write this article. The criticisms of object-oriented analysis presuppose that we know what object-oriented analysis is. As with any technique it is in fact practiced very differently by different practitioners – many of whom disagree with each other on many points. Many who claim they are object-oriented are in fact following the best of information engineering techniques. Indeed, many "information engineers" are guilty of analysis sins far more egregious than those presented here. Your author is the first to acknowledge both of those points.

The problem is language. Our industry is highly susceptible to fads, especially in terminology. The fact of the matter is that the subject at hand is – as it has always been – how do we do a better job of building systems? Each year people come up with new techniques to further the craft. Unfortunately, new sets of techniques invariably get packaged with a new name and are presented as if they have completely overturned everything that went before. This is never true. The new techniques are always incremental additions to the body of knowledge and only that – fancy names notwithstanding.

This is the problem with the way object-oriented analysis has been presented. Of course object-orientation has contributed greatly to the programmer's art.

The assignment for requirements analysis, however, has not changed. It remains that of understanding an enterprise in technologically neutral terms. The objective is to determine the data, function, and other requirements for information processing – expressed in terms that are both clear to the business customer of that processing, and which enable any technology to be applied in addressing them. Nothing in the object-oriented arsenal of tools has changed that. Requirements analysis is fundamentally a dialogue between the system architect and the potential system user.

Many of its practitioners in fact do recognize that if object-oriented development is to succeed, its practitioners must acknowledge and adopt the valuable techniques which preceded the advent of object-oriented programming. A proper business analysis is still required. Disciplined understanding of the nature of the data that describe objects remains important. We have known how to do these things for a long time. We can't afford to throw this knowledge out.

In short, there is no such thing as "object-oriented" analysis.

Copyright © 1998, Essential Strategies, Inc.

Information Engineering

source : wikipedia

Overview

Information Engineering Methodology is an architectural approach to planning, analysing, designing, and implementing applications within an enterprise. It aims to enable an enterprise to improve the management of its resources, including capital, people and information systems, to support the achievement of its business vision. It is defined as: "An integrated and evolutionary set of tasks and techniques that enhance business communication throughout an enterprise enabling it to develop people, procedures and systems to achieve its vision".

Information Engineering has many purposes, including organisation planning, business re-engineering, application development, information systems planning and systems re-engineering.

[edit] History

Information Engineering has a somewhat chequered history that follows two very distinct threads. It is said to have originated in Australia between 1976 and 1980, and appears first in the literature in 1981 in the Savant Institute publication 'Information Engineering' by James Martin and Clive Finkelstein.

Information Engineering first provided data analysis and database designdatabase administrators (DBAs) and by systems analysts to develop database designs and systems based upon an understanding of the operational processing needs of organizations for the 1980s. techniques that could be used by

The Finkelstein thread evolved after 1980 into the data processing (DP)-driven variant of IE. From 1983 till 1986 IE evolved further into the business-driven variant of IE, which was intended to address a rapidly changing business environment. The then Technical Director, Charles M. Richter, from 1983 to 1987, played a significant role by revamping the IE methodology as well as designing the IE software product (User-Data} which helped automate the IE methodology, opening the way to next generation Information Architecture.

The Martin thread was strategy-driven from the outset and from 1983 was focused on the possibility of automating the development process through the provision of techniques for business description that could be used to populate a data dictionary or encyclopedia that could in turn be used as source material for code generation. The Martin methodology provided a foundation for the CASEKnowledgeWare, originally Database Design Inc, (Information Engineering Workbench) and James Martin Associates, originally DMW and now Headstrong (the original designers of the Texas Instruments' Information Engineering Facility and the principal developers of the methodology). (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tool industry. Martin himself had significant stakes in at least four CASE tool vendors - InTech (Excelerator), Higher Order Software,

At the end of the 1980s and early 1990s the Martin thread incorporated Rapid Application Development (RAD) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) and soon after also entered the object oriented field.

[edit] Information Engineering topics

[edit] IE Variants

There are two variants of Information Engineering (IE). These are called the DP-driven variant and the business-driven variant.

• DP-Driven Variant of IE: The DP-driven variant of Information Engineering was designed to enable IS Departments to develop information systems that satisfied the information needs of the 1980s - which was largely a DP-driven development environment. Most of the Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools available today support this DP-driven variant of IE.
• Business-Driven Variant of IE : IE was extended into strategic business planning and developed the business-driven variant of Information Engineering. This variant was designed for rapid change in the client/server, object-oriented environment of the business-driven 1990s.

Business-driven IE is documented in the later books by Clive Finkelstein.

[edit] IE Stages

There are seven stages in Information Engineering:

• Information Strategy Planning : The fundamental objective of Information Strategy Planning (ISP) is to develop a plan for implementing business systems to support business needs.
• Outline Business Area Analysis : The OBAA answers a range of questions related to implementation of a business area. Select tasks to include in a particular project that provide support for business decisions and objectives. Specific information needs and priorities for the business area are needed.
• Detailed Business Area Analysis : The purpose of a DBAA project is to provide detailed models as a solid basis for system design. The methodology helps find the right answers to the right questions. Applying the methodology is never an end in itself.
• Business System Design : The purpose of a Business System Design project is to specify all aspects of a system that are relevant to its users, in preparation for the technical design, construction, and installation of one or more closely related databases and systems. The key tasks are therefore structured to produce unambiguous consistent specifications, with the volume of detail necessary to make planning and technical design decisions.
• Technical Design : A Technical Design project prepares an implementation area for construction and installation. The key tasks are structured to produce a system and database that meet the user's acceptance criteria and are technically sound.
• Construction : The objective of the Construction stage is to produce a system, as defined in the technical specification, on time and within budget. The system should be of an acceptable quality, and contain all necessary operating and user procedures. The task is complete when the acceptance criteria for the business system are met.
• Transition : Transition is defined as the period during which newly developed procedures gradually replace or are interfaced with existing procedures. The execution of a Transition project obviously demands a thorough understanding of both the system to be installed and the systems to be replaced.

[edit] IE Techniques

Some techniques that are used during an IE project are:

• Entity analysis : identifies all the things that the enterprise may want to hold data about. The analysis classifies all of the things into different entity types, revealing how they relate to each other. Which is being described in the entity model.
• Function analysis and process dependency : takes a function (a major business activity) of the enterprise and breaks it down into elementary business processes. From this, two diagrams are prepared: the process decomposition diagram, which shows the breakdown of a business function, and the process dependency diagram, which shows the interdependencies of business processes.
• Process logic analysis : describes the sequences of actions carried out by a business process and shows which data are used by each action.
• Entity type lifecycle analysis : describes the significant business changes to entities and confirm that processes have been modelled to effect these changes
• Matrix cross-checking : creates cross-references between data objects and processes to verify that they are necessary and complete.
• Normalization : provides a formal means of confirming the correctness of the entity model.
• Custer analysis : helps define the scope of design areas for proposed business systems.
• Data flow and data analysis : makes a comparison possible between the business area models and the systems currently supporting this area, these current systems are analyzed using data flow and data analysis techniques.

[edit] Software tools

There are several tools supporting Information Engineering

• Information Engineering Facility (IEF) from Texas Instruments Software. This was subsequently sold to Sterling Software and then to Computer Associates. It still exists, in an evolved form within the Advantage suite. As of 2006 referred to as ALL:Fusion Gen, capable of generating J2EE and JAVA web applications in addition to legacy client/server and mainframe platforms.
• Information Engineering Workbench (IEW) : Later renamed to Application Development Workbench (ADW) from KnowledgeWare. Knowledgeware was also acquired by Sterling Software. The product no longer exists.
• The business-driven variant of IE is supported by Visible Advantage, an Integrated CASE (I-CASE) tool and by Visible Advisor, a hypermedia Methodology product.
• Metastorm's ProVision product provides support for many types of modeling techniques using a repository based tool.
• Visio provides diagramming support to some of the Martin techniques.

Others included Bachman's Data Analyst, Excelerator and others. See Computer-aided software engineering for more info.

Systems engineers play a part in most of today’s technical disciplines

sorce : http://www.diversitycareers.com

The systems engineering field, born in aerospace and defense, is moving rapidly into the commercial industries

“I work on multiple projects at a time and know what’s going on across most of our projects.” – Jayesh Shah, DRS Tactical Systems

By Sue Marquette Poremba
Contributing Editor

In many companies the title of “systems engineer” implies you’ve aced several other engineering assignments on your career path. So says Pat Hale, president of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE, www.incose.com, Seattle, WA).

“Early on, systems engineers gather the needs of a project, which will often come in using non-engineering language, and translate the raw input into requirements and specifications that can be built into a product or system,” Hale explains.

The systems field originated in aerospace and defense and rapidly moved into the commercial industries. “One of the important activities going on today in systems engineering is sorting through the semantics, so we can have a conversation without having to explain what we mean by certain words,” Hale says. “Defense and aerospace use a great many acronyms that wouldn’t make sense to a software or consumer company.”

Moving into systems
Systems is a relatively new engineering discipline, established in the 1940s. At first it was mechanical and electrical engineers who moved into systems, but now all the engineering disciplines are developing systems engineers.

The job bank at INCOSE shows that systems engineering is a hot career, with a wide selection of companies looking to fill positions. Because the field is so young it tends to attract a more diverse population than more traditional engineering fields, Hale says. “If you’re a person who gets excited about a field that’s changing rapidly, systems engineering is for you.”

EE Lisa Koppenhofer: mission management at GE Aviation
Lisa Koppenhofer had served in the Royal Australian Navy for ten years when she was sent to Florida’s Gulf Coast. Her stay in the U.S. was supposed to be temporary, but it didn’t work out that way.

“I met my husband who’s from the U.S.,” says Koppenhofer. After a two-year long-distance relationship while she finished her military duty Koppenhofer left Australia and the Navy and moved to Grand Rapids, MI.

Her military background was in weapons EE. She trained at the Australian Defence Force Academy, part of the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia), which she says is like Annapolis. She got her BEE there in 1993.

Math and science were strongly encouraged at Koppenhofer’s high school, and her father had a military background. “Both those factors encouraged me to join the military, and I liked the Navy uniform best,” she says with a laugh.

After living in the U.S. for two years Koppenhofer discovered Smiths Aerospace, now a division of GE Aviation. “They were looking for a project engineer, and I knew the company name from my experience with Australian defense contractors,” she says. She had to wait until her permanent residency was approved before she could get to work; she started late in 2006.

At GE Aviation Koppenhofer is a systems engineer in the mission management area. She works in stores and weapons management systems, and is currently the systems lead for a project in the Bell AH-1Z helicopter program. “The purpose of the project is to deliver a design documentation package to our customer,” she explains. “We gather the data, develop new documentation if needed and correct any errors.

“In my Naval career,” Koppenhofer reflects, “My job was to understand the weapons systems on a ship. I was being trained to be in charge, so I had to have an in-depth knowledge of everything. That is similar to what I’m doing now, as far as how a system works and how a change in one part of the system affects other parts.”

Princess Cooper-Brown: senior systems engineer at Raytheon
A technical career always seemed like a good fit to Princess Cooper-Brown. Her dad had a physics degree from MIT (Cambridge, MA) and her mom had a career in higher education. As a kid she’d collect things like broken phones and try to figure out how to make them work again. “I always liked seeing how things operate,” she says.

But she also had a passion for business. When it came time for college she went for a BS in international business with a concentration in information systems at Northeastern University (Boston, MA). She went on to grad school at Northeastern, and finished her MS in information systems in 2006.

“You could be as business-centric or as technology-centric as you chose,” she explains. “It depended on the courses you took.”

Cooper-Brown began her career with Raytheon Technical Services Co (Burlington, MA) as an engineering and IT intern while in grad school. When she was hired full time she moved into programs and business development, working on strategic proposals.

“You never know what the challenges are going to be,” she says. “With each proposal I was taking on new roles. I started to develop an affinity for the solution and strategy side, and decided I wanted to explore solution architecture.”

She’s now a senior systems engineer at Raytheon, working on the company’s Air Traffic Controller Optimum Training Solution (ATCOTS) program. ATCOTS is a program to help the FAA train more than 14,000 air traffic controllers and optimize the training process. She’s been working on it for two years.

When she first came to the project she was officially the transition lead, but filled a number of other roles too. She facilitated working sessions to develop proposal strategies and technical solutions, and worked closely with several teammates, writing white papers and developing customer demos.

Once the proposal phase got under way she was in charge of the staffing models. “It was something new that I hadn’t done before, but my data analysis and technical skills led to
the role.

“Our business solution is related to our technical strategy,” she explains. “It determines who
we partner with, how we structure our solutions and whether or not we’ll go after a job.”

R. Curtis Eng works on Boeing’s 787
When your grandfather is an aviation pioneer and you are actually named after another pioneer, it’s not surprising to develop a fascination with airplanes. “My grandfather worked for Hughes and then Douglas, which eventually merged with Boeing,” Eng explains. “He was one of the main designers of the first retractable landing gear for aircraft, and he pioneered aviation engineering opportunities for Asian Americans.”

Despite his engineering degree, Eng’s grandfather had to come into Hughes as a draftsman, Eng says. “He was working late one night when Howard Hughes walked by and they began chatting. A few weeks later my grandfather was offered an engineering position; Howard Hughes had realized his capability and recognized the advantages of diversity.”

Eng himself went to Webb Institute (Glen Cove, NY), which offers degrees only in naval architecture and marine engineering. “The degree work covered a complete systems approach to the design of vessels, which turned out to be the technological basis of aircraft design as well,” he notes. He graduated in 1982, the first Asian American to graduate from the school. He worked in ship and boat design at several companies until 1986, when Boeing (Seattle, WA) hired him as a naval architect. Eng has been with the company ever since.

Eng was able to continue his education while working, first with an MS in engineering management from National Technology University (part of Walden University, Minneapolis, MN) in 1993, then with an MBA in technology management from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) in 2003.

He is now a manager in systems and software engineering at Boeing. It’s his job to look at the customer’s overall requirements, from which “the most suitable design is generated,” he says. “We understand what the requirements are, verify the systems and synthesize solutions that meet the customers’ needs.”

He is currently managing work on a test simulator for the new Boeing 787 aircraft, making sure the new components function well together. “The approach is to make sure the airplane system meets its performance targets and that the risks are minimized when the new aircraft undergoes real ground and flight tests. That’s what makes a well-validated product.”

Eng believes that systems engineering is taking on a more global scope. “We’re seeing the need to tap into many information sources and team with diverse people around the world, and do it faster than ever,” he says. “We’re going for solutions with plug-and-play aspects rather than tailoring work for only one mission.”

Besides his work, Eng is involved in Boeing’s Asian American Professional Association. He also leads one of the division’s diversity councils and does a lot of mentoring.

Charles Bridges: sharing information at Booz Allen
Charles Bridges grew up in inner city Baltimore, raised by his grandmother. The family quickly learned that he was the one to turn to if anything needed fixing around the house.

So when it came time for college, engineering seemed like the right direction. He decided on Morgan State University (Baltimore, MD), which had just begun offering engineering programs, because it allowed him to stay close to his grandmother.

When he received his BSEE in 1998 Bridges went to work for Booz Allen Hamilton (McLean, VA). After a few other jobs he returned to Booz Allen three years ago and is now an associate. He has completed an MS in systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD).

He likes the broad scope of systems engineering. “You have to balance many individuals in this job,” he says. “You pull back and look across the gamut. That’s a big challenge because in engineering you are very detail-oriented. It’s a difficult skill, but necessary, and I think it fits my personality.”

As an associate he’s in a leadership position. “I’m a consultant, bridging to executive management,” he says. “With 9/11 and other events happening there’s a drive to share information more efficiently and more effectively. A lot of my duties revolve around that.”

He works with a joint office set up between the Department of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence. “We help guide research and reciprocity between federal government communities,” he explains.

Bridges was recently named “most promising engineer of the year” in the Black Engineer of the Year awards (BEYA). “I was involved with BEYA informally for years,” he says. “I never thought I’d be considered for the award, let alone win it.”

The award is a tribute to his work, his community activities and his mentoring. Mentoring is very important to Bridges. “I know the struggles it takes to get here,” he says. “Mentoring gives me the chance to give back.”

Fredda Lerner leads a virtual team at BAE Systems
Fredda Lerner really longed to be an astronaut, but “Back in those days girls couldn’t be astronauts,” she recalls wryly. Fortunately, she also wanted to be an engineer. “My uncle was an engineer and I always thought that was really neat,” she says. “He got to travel a lot, and that was neat, too.”

So when she entered the Georgia Institute of Technology it was simply a matter of what type of engineering to go for. When she got her BSME in 1981 she found a job working on the space shuttle in Florida. It came quite close to her old dream:
“I was a test engineer and worked on the first four shuttle flights,” she says.

From there she moved to electrical/ mechanical design. “In those days computers had to be custom-made for a flight,” she says. She eventually got into computer integration.

Today Lerner works at BAE Systems (Reston, VA). She has two complementary jobs: product manager: “That’s the production side”; and engineering manager: “That’s the functional side.”

As product manager she’s a subcontractor for the government, leading a virtual team of techies located in California, Pennsylvania and New York. Of course no team can be 100 percent virtual, so she often travels to work face-to-face with team members. “The project manager is the glue that holds the team together, and they need to see me and know who I am,” she says. She also brings the whole team together from time to time.

As an engineering manager she has four functional reports, and nurtures their careers by giving them direct access to the system. She was given the job for her technical skills, but like many managers she finds the work is more administrative. “I’m no longer hands-on technical,” she says.

When she graduated from college, she notes with a smile, she never conceived of all the opportunities that have developed. “We didn’t even have laptops then,” she says. “But the changes in technology really helped me morph my career. I think I’ve adapted well!”

The year she started college was the first year the military service academies allowed women in. “The remote facility at the Space Center where I worked didn’t even have a ladies’ room when I started,” she says with a smile.

Sarah Cuy “runs the task” at Electric Boat
When Sarah Cuy got her BS in aeronautics at MIT (Cambridge, MA) in 1986 she found a job in California, working on a TRW missile program. “It was a simulations program and we worked on changing from one computer language to a different language,” Cuy says.

Cuy also worked on the “Star Wars” missile defense system and the C-17
in-flight control simulations. “All those things brought me to submarines at Electric Boat,” she says.

Cuy has been with General Dynamics Electric Boat (Groton, CT) since 1995. She came to the company to work on the Virginia-class submarine program, writing software for ship controls. Now she’s an engineering specialist, working with hydrodynamic simulations and verifying the control and performance of the Virginia, Seawolf and other nuclear subs. “I look at the hovering, how they perform, stuff like that.”

She’s currently leading a task to improve the Virginia’s hovering system. “That involves coordinating engineering and the designers who modify drawings. I make sure we’re on schedule. Mainly my job is to run the task.”

The Virginia class is already fitted out with the best equipment, but it’s Cuy’s task to make
it better. “There are always new technologies out there,” she says. “Things are always improving.”

There’s probably no more sophisticated machine than a submarine. Over the years Cuy has seen amazing technology changes. The Virginia ship controls, for example, were changed from analog dials to touch screens virtually overnight. “Computer systems are faster. Technology is faster, smaller, more improved. What used to take an hour now takes minutes.”

Cuy began her career when few women were going into the field, but she has never found her gender to be an issue. John P. Casey, president, says, “The future of General Dynamics Electric Boat depends on our ability to develop a diverse workforce to help resolve complex engineering challenges, and help us identify and seize opportunities in a rapidly changing economy.

“Diversity drives innovation, and innovation is the reason Electric Boat has succeeded for
110 years.”

Darryl Gomez: systems engineering Fellow at Northrop Grumman
Darryl Gomez is a Filipino who grew up in Hawaii, where his mother’s folks worked on some of the large sugarcane plantations. He learned the importance of hard work from them, but it was his years in the Air Force that taught him the value of education.

He joined the Air Force right after high school, spending eight years working on radar systems. He completed his associates degree from the Community College of the Air Force, and went on to a BSCS from Oklahoma City University (Oklahoma City, OK) in 1987.

After graduation he looked for a career that would combine his in-depth radar experience with his CS degree. “What was then Westinghouse and is now Northrop Grumman (Baltimore, MD) offered me a position as a software engineer where I could use my radar background, too, so I was happy to grab it,” he says.

On an early project the company paired software engineers with systems engineers to identify radar system improvements. Gomez was one of the software engineers. “I learned a lot from the systems engineers I worked with,” he says.

Eventually an opportunity opened in systems engineering and Gomez was asked to move in. He’s now a systems engineering Fellow at Northrop Grumman.

Gomez took advantage of an in-house radar engineering systems course, and earned an MS in systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD). He graduated in 2002 and is now working on a PhD in systems engineering from George Washington University (Washington, DC).

All the time he was learning he was working. He’s currently on two airborne surveillance
radar projects.

Gomez is also part of Northrop Grumman’s Asian Pacific professional network, and a mentor
to young engineers. “I think the transfer of knowledge is valuable and I’m happy to share,”
he says.

Jayesh Shah: senior principal engineer at DRS
In 1977 Jayesh Shah received his BSEE from the University of Bombay, India, and came to the U.S. for grad school. He completed an MSEE at Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, NJ) in 1979.

After graduation he took a job with a company in Melbourne, FL, developing computers and high-speed peripherals. Over the next twenty-five years he worked as a design engineer for computers and broadband communications equipment for military and commercial apps. Four years ago he joined DRS (Melbourne, FL), a defense-related company, as a systems engineer and he’s now a senior principal engineer.

Shah’s job is at DRS Tactical Systems, which makes rugged computers and display units for the military. He’s currently working for the VP of engineering in the advanced technology office. “We’re a small group of senior engineers who look at the emerging technologies that we can incorporate into products for our military and industrial customers,” Shah explains.

Shah moved to DRS because he wanted to go beyond his long career in design and work in systems engineering. “I thought I’d done enough design work and wanted a bigger picture of the company and the products,” he says. “When you’re working on a product your visibility is limited to your immediate task, and I wanted a wider horizon.”

Now Shah works with marketing, engineering and more. “I help define processes that the younger engineers use for product development,” he says. “It gives me the opportunity to use the experience I’ve gained.”

DRS has a large portfolio of military and industrial products and Shah is usually working on multiple projects at a time. “I pretty much know what’s going on across most of our projects,” he says with pleasure. He also gets into proposals and quotes.

Back in his undergrad days there weren’t many computers in all of India. Shah still remembers how, as a student, he visited a research company that had one of the few computers in Bombay. It took up the entire floor of the building.

“Today I probably have as much computing power in my PC as that giant computer did,” he says. “Whenever I think maybe we’re reaching the end of what computers can do, something new is developed.

“Of course, all these improvements help the military work I do.”

Allison Barto: looking into space with Ball
Allison Barto remembers going camping with her family as a child and gazing up at the stars. “When I was nine I was ready to get my PhD in astrophysics,” she recalls with a smile.

But as she progressed through Harvey Mudd College (Claremont, CA) she realized that academic life might have too narrow a focus. She had interned at the Jet Propulsion Lab (Pasadena, CA) and decided that aerospace could combine her interests in math, science and astrophysics.

So she proceeded to a 1998 BS in physics and found a job at Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp (Boulder, CO), where she could contribute to work with the James Webb Space Telescope.

She came in as a signals processor, but from the beginning she was working to move into systems engineering. “I’m a ‘big picture’ thinker,” she says. “I want to step all the way back and look at all the interactions and understand the whole program.”

In 2002 she formally moved into systems engineering; she’s currently a senior systems engineer. She’s the integrated product team lead for the systems engineering group, manages the group and serves as systems verifications lead. That gives her responsibility for optical verification of the James Webb Space Telescope, working closely with ITT and Northrop Grumman. “We do some administrative work, but our focus is on technology and problem solving,” she explains.

“It’s a bit of a challenge to show how this large cryogenic telescope will work in space, since it’s so large and needs to be so cold. It’s hard to test on the ground,” she says. “The mirror on the telescope is 6.5 meters, so we can’t send light through the entire thing!”

One of the contributions worked out by Barto and her systems team is a test that helps them better understand the telescope’s ability and estimate its performance while in space.

Ball is a fine place for diverse techies, Barto believes. Its executive diversity council supports an inclusive environment that strengthens and leverages company culture and contributes to company success.

D/C

Sue Marquette Poremba is an engineering and construction writer based in State College, PA.