Wright State University’s Departments of Art and Art History, Music, and Theatre, Dance, and Motion Pictures have developed CELIA—Collaborative Education, Leadership, and Innovation in the Arts—a Wright State University Center of Excellence.

CELIA will oversee projects to enrich the already-remarkable artistic climate in the Dayton region—an important tool for economic development.

“What make our center special are two key words in the title—collaborative and innovation,” said Hank Dahlman, professor of music and director of CELIA. “We’re looking for innovative projects and artistic products through collaboration both internally within the university and externally with partners in the Dayton area and, eventually, nationally and internationally.”

CELIA will enhance ongoing collaborations as well as nurture new partnerships. Projects accepted for the CELIA designation will demonstrate high-quality, innovative collaborations, and the ability to further strengthen the reputation of the arts at Wright State.

“A distinct feature of the plans of the founders of Wright State was to develop programs of the highest quality for educating artists. This goal has been realized in each of our three art departments,” said Charles Taylor, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “Our Center of Excellence’s name—CELIA—emphasizes the unique collaborations through which these programs rise above others. The collaborative arts education, collaborative leadership in the arts, and the collaborative innovation in the arts that have existed for a long time at Wright State University are unique to our university and distinguish us nationally and indeed internationally.”

Wright State has been doing collaborative work with Dayton arts organizations for years, including the Dayton Art Institute, Dayton Public Radio, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, FilmDayton, and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. “The performing arts departments at Wright State are among the gems of Dayton’s arts community. I never cease to be impressed with the quality of performances by Wright State University students,” said Neal Gittleman, music director for the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gittleman has worked with Wright State theatre and dance students on West Side Story and with singers from the music department’s Collegiate Chorale on many occasions with the Dayton Philharmonic. “Wright State performing arts students are well trained and perform as poised young professionals. They’re a great addition to Dayton’s lively arts scene,” he said.

One of the first projects completed under the CELIA umbrella was The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant, a documentary on the final days of General Motors Corporation’s last Dayton-area plant. The Last Truck was the creation of Julia Reichert, professor of theatre arts and motion pictures at Wright State, and alumnus Steven Bognar, ’86.

Like other Reichert/Bognar productions, the making of The Last Truck involved numerous students, alumni, and faculty from Wright State’s filmmaking community. “The support we received from the Wright State film department helped us hugely, on so many levels,” said Bognar. “The demanding shoot called out to the Wright State film community for help, and the students and alumni answered that call, braving day after day of freezing cold to shoot the film and bear witness to this major local event. It was an opportunity for the Wright State community to see firsthand the impact the economy has on the lives of real people.”

Another example of collaboration and innovation in the arts is STEAM3, a course for art, music, science, and mathematics education majors that incorporates the creative arts to teach science and math. The class combines the STEMM disciplines of science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine with art and music.

Teams of students teach science or math units at area schools using art or music as the methodology. Angela Nation, a fourth and fifth grade science and social studies teacher at Charity Adams Earley Academy for Girls, said the art and music activities helped her students make connections among the different disciplines. “They got a whole realm of different things they could talk about. It helped them understand that science is everywhere and can relate to anything,” said Nation.

Current and future CELIA projects will enrich the already-remarkable artistic climate in the Dayton region—an important tool for economic development. “Dayton has an outstanding arts community,” said Dahlman. “Where we see this going is in assisting with the development of a truly diverse and creative class in the region and state. We are in a position to leverage the artistic diversity and richness that we have in this region as we enter the next phase of development in the area.”

Video: Tom Hanks praises Wright State arts programs

Click here to view the embedded video.

As executive director of WSRI, S. Narayanan helps businesses, industry, and governments solve customer-driven problems.

What are the problems you’re facing today? What do you need? How can we help?

Those are the questions staff from the Wright State Research Institute (WSRI) ask their customers in business, industry, and government as they form a partnership.

“We want to focus on customer-driven problems,” said S. Narayanan, executive director of WSRI. “It’s about being proactive, being nimble, and being responsive to customer needs. Ultimately, it’s commitment to excellence and delivering high-quality solutions at a very competitive cost.”

WSRI was the vision of David Hopkins, Wright State University’s president. Planning for the research institute began when Hopkins was provost of the university. WSRI is structured as a primary driver of the university’s economic development activities, linking its academic mission to industry and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Since WSRI began operations in January 2007, it has executed 62 projects and more than $3.6 million in research, created more than 20 jobs, and supported more than 25 students through research projects and industrial internships.

WSRI prides itself on being customer focused, agile, flexible, and able to provide highly individualized service. “We walk in and we listen. That’s not the normal academic approach to research. This is ‘let me help you solve a problem’ and customers have really responded to that. They can contact the institute and we’ll find the resources across campus to solve their problem,” explained Ryan Fendley, WSRI’s business manager.

WSRI is composed of core staff members, supplemented by the technical expertise of Wright State’s faculty. The capability to draw from any resource within the university to develop a solution to a problem helps WSRI build collaborative partnerships within the university and with outside partners.

Key projects and partnerships

Ongoing research for the Center for Operator Performance is one of WSRI’s most successful projects to date. The center brings together a group of petrochemical companies and control system vendors to undertake research of immediate importance that will impact their operations and bottom line. Marathon, Chevron, and Nova Chemicals are just a few of the companies across the United States and Canada who pay membership fees to belong to the center and direct research projects.

Wright State University worked with David Strobhar, president of Beville Engineering and a Wright State graduate, to create the center. “The Center for Operator Performance is improving the safety of oil refineries and pipelines in Ohio and across North America,” said Strobhar. “The center is able to conduct research that would be difficult for any individual company to justify or even know how to do, so it really fills a need. WSRI provides the oversight and rigor to the research that is needed to make multi-million-dollar decisions and/or influence regulatory agencies.”

According to Narayanan, “This has given us some great opportunities to work with different companies. Our faculty already has a lot of expertise in human factors and decision making, but now they have the opportunity to apply it to specific industry problems.”

Jennie Gallimore is a professor of industrial and human factors engineering at Wright State. She also serves as the university’s faculty liaison with the Center for Operator Performance. One of Gallimore’s research projects for the center was to look at color guidelines for the hundreds of display screens used by process operators and recommend an industry standard. “The older displays looked like Christmas trees. It was just a big color mess,” said Gallimore. During her research, Gallimore recognized that there were more pressing issues at hand than just color. “The biggest problem was, is the information presented in the right way at the right time to make the right decision,” she said. This conclusion led to a new project to reduce the number of displays to improve the quality of decision making.

“When a system goes down, it affects the economy. You’re directly affecting the economy when you solve problems to keep these plants from going down,” explained Gallimore. “If something has to be shut down, they lose millions of dollars. This is very important in terms of solving problems.”

The Aerospace Technology Evaluation and Assessment (ATEA) program is Mark Wysong’s biggest project. Wysong is program manager for WSRI. The ATEA provides research and engineering for the Air Force Research Laboratory and Aeronautical Systems Center. Wysong sees this five-year-long project as a good fit for WSRI. “A lot of our capabilities are lined up very well to the Air Force’s mission,” he said. Working with prime contractor Infoscitex, WSRI will provide operations research and modeling and simulation capabilities for new air vehicle technologies, including unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Automatic Target Recognition Center (ATR) is another partnership between WSRI and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Led by Brian Rigling, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Wright State, the center focuses on sensors technology and target recognition applications. As Rigling explains, ATR uses computers or processors to derive information from sensor data and make decisions. “This kind of technology has fairly broad applications. It’s by no means just a military application,” said Rigling. Medical imaging is just one example where ATR can be used to highlight potentially cancerous regions in a mammogram or a cervical cancer–screening slide.

An engine for economic development

“Whenever a university wants to grow in their capability to support others on the outside, it should form a research institute,” said Bart Barthelemy, associate director of the Wright Brothers Institute and Tec^Edge. Barthelemy has worked with WSRI since its inception and serves on WSRI’s advisory board. “As WSRI’s stature and contributions grow, it will really enhance the region. The potential is there for a huge amount of money to come into Wright State and the region. WSRI can be a powerful engine for economic development.”

This is a mission wholeheartedly supported by WSRI’s leader. “We are focused on increasing the overall research and development portfolio within the university,” said Narayanan. “Ultimately, it’s about collaboration with industry to help them be more successful, so there are more jobs created within the region.”

Wright State University: A Culture of Innovation and Collaboration Video

S. Narayanan, executive director of the Wright State Research Institute, discusses the innovations and collaborations at Wright State University.

Click here to view the embedded video.

CEPRO Director Ramana Grandhi and his team have been working with the Air Force and LSP Technologies to determine how laser peening could prevent the F-22 Raptor’s wing lug from failing.

To compete in a global market, Ohio must develop new technologies to continually spawn innovative products that require minimal cost to manufacture and sustain. Wright State’s new Center of Excellence in Product Reliability and Optimization (CEPRO) will perform cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in computational modeling, simulation, and the optimization of complex structures, advanced manufacturing processes, and high-tech products. It will deliver vital economic development technologies to industries that no longer possess the expertise for their own transformative research.

Ramana Grandhi, distinguished professor of mechanical and materials engineering, is CEPRO’s director. Working with industries for more than 20 years to improve design processes, Grandhi has a client list that ranges from General Electric to Ford Motor Company. Using computer-based research to model physics, Grandhi and his team of researchers are able to simulate a product before it’s actually made, saving companies millions of dollars. “They don’t have to do expensive testing first by making a prototype to see where it breaks to determine the life of it,” said Grandhi.

Grandhi has worked with the Air Force for 25 years in air vehicles, propulsion, and materials, helping them develop new methodologies, techniques, and designs for creating aircraft components such as wings, fuselages, and tails. For the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor, Grandhi and his team have been looking at how laser peening could prevent the fighter’s wing lug from failing. Connecting the wings to the fuselage, the lugs on the F-22 have been developing fatigue and deteriorating faster than expected. Rather than redesigning something that’s already part of the plane, Grandhi is working with LSP Technologies, Inc., a Columbus, Ohio-based company, to see how they can make the lugs last longer.

LSP Technologies’ LaserPeen^® process uses a high-intensity laser to create laser shots in the lugs, thereby removing the tension. “This is very expensive technology, but if we can prove that it will work, it could save millions of dollars. Everything could be done on the computer—how many shots to give, how much duration, what is the laser intensity,” Grandhi explained.

“Working with Dr. Grandhi, his staff, and students has been a great experience and a win-win for all of us,” said David Lahrman, director of business development for LSP Technologies, Inc. “We have supported his graduate students by educating them about our LaserPeen^® process and providing information to support their graduate work on modeling the laser shock process. This program is important because it will provide analytical methods to understand the implications of a surface enhancement process on a component and what type of process to apply. The models Dr. Grandhi is developing will, at some point, assist us with more efficiently applying our process to our customers’ components.”

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Success with military applications could then be applied to the commercial sector. “We develop the technology and then translate it to industry,” said Grandhi. For example, if laser peening proves to be effective with the lugs in the F-22’s, it could be used to make prosthetic implants last longer, eliminating the need for additional surgeries.

Wind energy is another project for CEPRO where maintenance of the wind turbine blades is an issue. Grandhi is working with Minster Machine Company in Minster, Ohio, on how laser peening could prevent cracks in the blades.

CEPRO will incorporate Wright State faculty from across three colleges, including the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Raj Soin College of Business, and the College of Science and Mathematics. “Most of the engineering problems are needing multiple disciplines, including several different types of engineering, business, computer science, and physics,” explained Grandhi. “Our research all along has been interdisciplinary.”

CEPRO is in a unique situation in that Wright State is located right next door to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. While the base is CEPRO’s biggest customer, the desire to work with Ohio industries is also at the forefront. “We make sure all of the technology has commercial potential,” said Grandhi. “We want to make sure it gets into the broader industry.”

By helping companies who could not otherwise afford this foundational research and by getting new technological advances out to Ohio manufacturers as quickly as possible, CEPRO is giving Ohio industry a competitive edge and ultimately benefitting the state’s economy.

“The Center of Excellence in Product Reliability and Optimization helps Ohio companies in a variety of ways. CEPRO’s focus is on applications with strong product and commercialization potential for Ohio in advanced materials, aerospace, energy, and medical applications,” said David Swenson, vice president of business initiatives for the Edison Materials Technology Center (EMTEC). EMTEC’s primary role is to reduce new technology risk and costs to Ohio’s small- and medium-sized companies, which are the engines for Ohio’s economic growth.

“CEPRO can provide a flow of new technology that is usable by both existing and emerging markets—those that are high growth and critical to Ohio’s economy,” said Swenson. “By making CEPRO resources available, this initiative provides opportunities for new job creation and job retention in Ohio. Additionally, it can serve as a resource to attract new companies to Ohio by providing a unique academic/commercial partnership to generate products that are sustainable in today’s global business environment.”

For David Lahrman and LSP Technologies, “the models developed in CEPRO will serve more than just our company. The center Dr. Grandhi has created will serve several Ohio-based companies, because the research he is conducting reaches far beyond just our industry. The future of technology advances and applications will be understood and evaluated by modeling them before they are placed into a product. This will save cost and time with a higher degree of confidence. For Ohio companies, the center will provide the difference they need to succeed in their industry and, as a result, will mean more business.”

Center of Excellence in Product Reliability and Optimization (CEPRO) Video

CEPRO Director Ramana Grandhi explains how the center helps the military and private industry save millions of dollars in product development.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As director of the Wright State University & Premier Health Partners Neuroscience Institute, Timothy Cope will be instrumental in speeding the transfer of research discoveries from the laboratory to the bedside.

Survivors of strokes and people living with Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and other disorders of the nervous system may one day find help in Dayton, Ohio. The Wright State University & Premier Health Partners Neuroscience Institute will speed the transfer of research discoveries from the laboratory to the bedside, improving the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders. This major public-private initiative partners the Dayton region’s strongest biomedical research institution with the clinical resources of the region’s leading hospital system.

“Nerve regeneration is not synonymous with recovery,” explained Timothy Cope, chair of the Department of Neuroscience, Cell Biology, and Physiology, and director of the Wright State University & Premier Health Partners Neuroscience Institute. “Unlike the central nervous system—where the spinal cord is injured and the nerves do not regenerate—if you damage a peripheral nerve, it regenerates but when it reconnects you don’t regain normal function.”

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The gap between nerve regeneration and the restoration of normal function is one of the key components of research for Cope and his team of neuroscientists. They have already begun to identify where the problems are at the cellular level. “We have publications, ongoing studies, and data collection that are providing really interesting insights into where the problems are,” said Cope. “Regeneration restores a lot and that’s great news, but it’s incomplete. Properties of nerve cells and the special structures they use to communicate get jumbled in ways that limit recovery.”

For example, if a chef in a restaurant cuts a nerve in his hand with a carving knife, he may not be able to move his hand anymore. If the nerve grows back, he will be able to move his hand again, but the movement will not be normal. The chef may be able to pick up a skillet or a cookbook, but he might not be able to tie his apron or cut vegetables. Everyday tasks involving dexterity are not the same.

Premier Health Partners has made a major investment of $4.35 million over five years to create a new Department of Neurology within Wright State University’s Boonshoft School of Medicine.

“Attracting sufficient numbers of clinical neurologists to serve our community has been an ongoing challenge,” said Molly Hall, M.D., chief academic officer and vice president of academic affairs for Premier Health Partners. “This new partnership will help attract additional neurology specialists, provide improved access to neurological care in the area, and enhance the ability of Wright State’s researchers to attract federal grants and major clinical trials to this region.”

“These advances are critically needed for the treatment of movement disorders arising from common conditions such as strokes, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, ALS, neuromuscular disorders, and various neuropathies that arise from complications of diabetes, chemotherapy, or nerve injury,” said Robert Fyffe, associate dean for research affairs in the Boonshoft School of Medicine and professor of neuroscience, cell biology, and physiology. “These disorders currently affect millions of patients at incalculable cost to families, society, and the economy. The Neuroscience Institute will promote research from the molecular to the behavioral level to gain new insights into these disorders, and it will also be the training ground for medical and graduate students, who will be the physicians and scientists of the future.”

“One of the major research strengths in the Boonshoft School of Medicine is the field of neuroscience, where groups of NIH-funded researchers have already made an impact in areas such as spinal cord and brainstem control of movement and breathing,” said Fyffe.
A primary focus of their research is nervous system disorders that affect movement. The Premier Health Partners system has a large and diverse patient base that provides excellent opportunity for high-quality research and clinical trials.

With neuroscientists and neurologists at the forefront of research and treatment, the Wright State University & Premier Health Partners Neuroscience Institute could one day provide the best possible care for neurological disorders.

As Cope explained, “The Neuroscience Institute will give our region a visibility where people will say ‘I’m going to go to Dayton where they’ve got some clinical trials and they’ve got some basic scientists who are focused on solutions that are relevant to the problems I have.’”

Wright State University & Premier Health Partners Neuroscience Institute Video

Timothy Cope, director of the Wright State University & Premier Health Partners Neuroscience Institute, explains how this new partnership will improve the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Parent Testimonial

Molly Hall, M.D., chief academic officer and vice president of academic affairs for Premier Health Partners, speaks during a Feb. 24, 2010, news conference at Miami Valley Hospital to announce the formation of the Neuroscience Institute.

Hall said her daughter dropped her pursuit of gaining admission to medical schools in the Ivy League after being accepted by the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University because of its culture of cooperation and lack of arbitrary competitiveness.

Click here to view the embedded video.

George Huang, director of the Center of Excellence for Micro Air Vehicle Research, hopes the Dayton region will become the Silicon Valley for micro air vehicles.

“This was my passion. Having a small-size airplane that looks like a fly is a dream,” explained George Huang, chair of Wright State’s Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and director of the new Center of Excellence for Micro Air Vehicle Research.

Using nature for inspiration, Huang and his team of researchers have created a micro air vehicle (MAV) modeled after the dragonfly. The MAV has a seven-and-a-half-inch wingspan and weighs 10 grams—the weight of two nickels.

According to Huang, there are many military and non-military advantages of having a plane this size, including rescue missions and spying on enemies in urban areas.

“Terrorists are in buildings, not open fields. You need to go in and see what the enemies are doing, find out where radioactive materials are located. That can only be done with a smaller object that can maneuver like a fly, not an airplane,” Huang explained.

To develop the MAV, Huang and his team studied the dragonfly and how it can sense the flow direction, going up or gliding down as needed to conserve energy. While the MAV is currently radio controlled, Huang hopes to develop sensors for the body of the MAV so it can determine flow direction and react accordingly.

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“There are different types of engineering working together to get to that stage,” said Huang. “It’s an interdisciplinary approach covering a broad range of knowledge from electrical engineering to computer science to human factors.”

Huang and his students also tapped into the expertise of local companies, including Mound Laser & Photonics Center, Inc., in Miamisburg. According to president and CEO Larry Dosser, his team used laser micromachining to create parts for the MAV and laser welded them together. “MAV work is ideal for us. We took a wing from a fly, scanned it and converted it for the lasers to replicate,” Dosser explained. “The MAV is a classic example of how we can apply our technology to develop something that the Air Force and Department of Defense can use. A lot of this technology has defense or sensing applications, but there are also very similar applications in the medical device fields.”

As the design of the MAV continues to evolve, Huang is looking for other partners and funding to support the project. “We see the opportunities to work with the Air Force and local companies to develop a micro air vehicle,” said Huang, who cites the Air Force’s goals of releasing a palm-sized MAV by 2015 and an insect-sized MAV by 2030.

“Just as the Wright brothers created the first airplane and changed the world, Wright State can be a leader in this new type of aircraft—the micro air vehicle. This cutting-edge technology could change the future of both military and civilian operations, ranging from rescue missions to gathering information. By creating partnerships with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and local aerospace companies, the Dayton region can once again lead the world in flight,” said Bor Jang, dean of Wright State’s College of Engineering and Computer Science.

“This is the new industry of the 21st century. The Dayton region can evolve from making cars to creating micro air vehicles that you can hold in your hand,” said Dosser. “The collaboration between Wright State and our company will help all of us stay on the leading edge of this technology.”

Huang hopes the Dayton region will become the Silicon Valley for micro air vehicles. “Companies will come here and this will become a center for micro air vehicle technology,” said Huang.

Center of Excellence in Micro Air Vehicle Research Video

George Huang, director of the Center of Excellence in Micro Air Vehicle Research, describes military and civilian applications for the micro air vehicle.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Featuring realistic mockups of disaster situations, the National Center for Medical Readiness will offer a real-world training and research environment.

The parking garage of a high-rise building collapses. Thousands of gallons of water flood local streets. Miners become trapped in underground tunnels.

Such real-life disaster scenarios will be an everyday occurrence when the National Center for Medical Readiness (NCMR) at Calamityville offers its first training courses in 2010. The NCMR will transform nearly 60 acres of land in Fairborn, Ohio—on the site of the former CEMEX concrete plant—into a one-of-a-kind training facility for medical, public health, public safety, and civilian and military disaster-response decision makers from around the world.

“There are about a half-dozen other disaster-training sites in the United States, but none of them have medicine as their central core component,” explained NCMR Director Mark Gebhart, who is also an associate professor of emergency medicine at Wright State’s Boonshoft School of Medicine. “This will be unique—the first of its kind.”

For Glenn Hamilton, professor of emergency medicine at the Boonshoft School of Medicine, the tragedies of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina raised the question of how the nation’s health care system could become better prepared for terrorist attacks or natural disasters. “Homeland security doesn’t fully exist without security in the health care system,” said Hamilton. “Physicians and nurses are not really prepared in disaster readiness.”

Hamilton will serve as director of the NCMR Tactical Laboratory. The training provided in the Tactical Laboratory will feature realistic mockups of disaster situations, including confined spaces, submersion, elevated platforms, wilderness, rubble piles, transportation mishaps, and a field simulation hospital. The site’s existing facilities, with silos and thousands of feet of underground tunnels, offer a real-world training and research environment.

The tactical laboratory can also serve as a test bed for new products or research. For example, a micro air vehicle could be tested in the tunnels to see how it would work in urban spaces or confined areas to locate survivors.

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The NCMR will also offer a Modular Emergency Medical System (MEMS). A collaboration with the Ohio Department of Health, the MEMS program will develop and maintain a statewide network of mobile Acute Care Centers (ACC) and Neighborhood Emergency Help Centers (NEHC). The ACCs and NEHCs can provide support to hospitals, primary care offices, and other health care systems during large-scale emergencies, such as a natural disaster or terrorist attack.

Each NEHC can provide triage services and basic medical treatment for up to 1,000 patients per day, freeing hospitals to focus on more serious conditions rather than case management or non-critical care. Each ACC can provide inpatient care for up to 250 people simultaneously, including hydration, bronchial therapy, and antibiotics. Both types of centers are designed for rapid deployment and self-sufficiency, enabling them to reach emergency sites quickly and provide vital care during the critical first 72 hours following an incident.

A community partnership that will transform the region

The NCMR is the result of a community partnership with the City of Fairborn, government officials, and area business and military leaders. CEMEX donated its facility and the surrounding 54-acre property, and the Ohio Department of Development has granted $2.8 million to clean up the brownfield site. Wright State University will provide $900,000 in matching funds. To date, more than $13 million in state and federal support has been received for the project.

“The Fairborn community values and is proud to support Wright State University and the National Center for Medical Readiness Tactical Laboratory at Calamityville,” said Gary Woodward, former mayor of Fairborn. “Our community will gain substantial benefits now and in the future through this effort, including cleanup and revitalization of an abandoned brownfield site in the city, the addition of future new jobs for the area, the beginning of a new leading-edge homeland security training facility in our region, and the multiplier effect of the need for more goods and services to support this major effort in Fairborn.”

Wright State anticipates the initial site cleanup will be completed in early 2010, after which it can begin focusing on renovating and building the first phase of the tactical laboratory. The first courses should be offered at the new site in 2010. Phase II will include additional props and a water feature, and Phase III will add a state-of-the-art hospital/student center. Phases II and III will begin once funding is in place.

Once it is fully functioning, the NCMR is expected to generate a direct and indirect economic impact of $374 million to the Dayton region over a five-year period. Training courses alone are estimated to bring in more than $4.3 million annually. As a test-bed for commercial product research and development, the laboratory could produce additional revenues of more than $2 million annually. Approximately 35 new jobs will be created, with construction resulting in another 344 jobs. In addition, the tactical laboratory will increase tourism and overnight stays in the region, increase sales and income tax revenues, and provide opportunities for the establishment and expansion of local business ventures.

But one of the greatest benefits of the National Center for Medical Readiness at Calamityville cannot be measured in dollars and cents. “As a physician, you want to be able to do good for people,” said Gebhart. “With a project like this, you can touch so many lives.”

National Center for Medical Readiness (NCMR) Video

Director Mark Gebhart discusses how the National Center for Medical Readiness will serve as a one-of-a-kind training facility for medical, public health, public safety, and civilian and military disaster-response decision makers from around the world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The vision of the Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-Enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis) and Director Amit Sheth is to move from traditional computing, which is focused on data or information processing, to productive thinking and decision making.

How can computing better serve human needs? How can massive amounts of multimedia information be more useful for people? Those are the types of issues the Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-Enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis) will be tackling.

Amit Sheth, professor of computer science and engineering and LexisNexis Ohio Eminent Scholar, will serve as the center’s director. “Most of the new products and services are centered around the creation and use of new knowledge,” said Sheth. “In a very broad sense, economies have moved from agricultural to industrial to service to a knowledge economy. The largest growth in all areas, including manufacturing and services, is in the knowledge service component of those.”

With all of the data resulting from searches, the problem is no longer locating data but making sense out of the data through meaningful processing that leads to insights. The center’s semantic computing vision is to move from computing focused on data or information processing to productive thinking and decision making. It will transform the measures of success from storage capacity and processing speed to indices that reflect the quality of human experience and effectiveness, such as creativity and innovation.

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“Through the use of knowledge, we are able to create tremendous value,” said Sheth. “How do you make data meaningful? How do you go away from just number crunching to creating much higher, value-added services and products through the use of knowledge?”

Sheth sees an excellent fit with the military’s increasing emphasis on projecting soft power, and the Air Force’s increasing emphasis on cyberspace, which requires intelligent use of information and social computing. “When we fight a war, it’s also about understanding the culture and how people react,” he said. “Making Web 2.0 technology more meaningful—which is what we call Web 3.0 technology—is very important in how we fight today’s nontraditional war.” Some of the center’s work will focus on understanding social data and how culture affects thinking.

The center’s vision is inherently multidisciplinary, requiring synergy between advanced computing (including Internet and Web), knowledge processing, visualization, and cognitive systems. The Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-Enabled Computing brings together the processes of three existing Wright State centers: daytaOhio, the Kno.e.sis Center, and the Center for Healthy Communities. In the rapidly emerging area of Semantic Web/Web 3.0, Kno.e.sis has the largest group of researchers in the United States.

Sheth is listed among the most-cited computer scientists in the world, and the center’s 15 faculty members from four colleges have more than 34,000 citations. “Dr. Sheth’s work is recognized both nationally and internationally,” said Jim Leftwich, president of the Dayton Development Coalition. “The Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-Enabled Computing is world class in Web 3.0, and its relevance to knowledge services can give this region a competitive advantage and generate an unbelievable number of jobs.”

Knowledge-Enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis) Video

From social networking to medical records, Amit Sheth—director of the Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-Enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis)—describes how the center is working on projects to make massive amounts of data more meaningful.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Ohio Center of Excellence in Human-Centered Innovation hopes to be involved in NextGen—the transformation of the United States’ national airspace system from a ground-based system of air traffic control to a satellite-based system of air traffic management.

How will the cars of the future help you avoid a crash rather than just protect you when one occurs? How could airplanes fly without radar and air traffic controllers? What type of technology will help the elderly stay in their homes longer? Those are the types of questions faculty will be answering in the Ohio Center of Excellence in Human-Centered Innovation.

Focused on developing systems and technology for human use, the center’s research takes into consideration human needs, capabilities, and limitations. The result is the development of systems, technologies, processes, and organizational changes that enhance work, play, travel, education, and health.

“We have people who specialize in biomedical imaging and health care, creating technology for the disabled, and improving the structure of organizations. It’s such a broad range,” said Gallimore, professor of biomedical, industrial, and human factors engineering, who will serve as the center’s director.

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The Ohio Center of Excellence in Human-Centered Innovation includes 56 faculty from six colleges, providing unique synergistic opportunities for collaboration. Faculty in the center have an excellent record of external funding totaling more than $33 million in the past five years from industry, state, and federal sources.

“Faculty members at Wright State have an established record of human-centered research and development through years of collaboration with industrial partners, federal agencies, medical communities, and the Air Force Research Laboratory,” said David R. Hopkins, president of Wright State. “The challenges we face every day are multidisciplinary, therefore the solutions must be as well.”

With the historic activation of the 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) in 2008, following the Base Realignment and Closure process, Wright State can play a pivotal role in human-centered research and development for the Department of Defense (DoD).

In addition to collaborating with WPAFB and the DoD, Wright State’s center will also support the United States Air Transportation System, NextGen, a Congressional mandate that must be operational by 2025. “Instead of having air traffic controllers talk to you and tell you which way to go, the airplanes themselves can decide because they’ll have GPS and know where they are and be able to tell where other airplanes are. Everything will be done through data links rather than through radar and voice commands,” explained Gallimore.

Cyber security for NextGen is one project Gallimore is considering for the center. “If everything is data linked and it’s all computer run, there’s a possibility that somebody could take over the aircraft or take over the system. We’re trying to get involved in that, with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as our partner, where we would provide the capability to do simulations and cyber security for NextGen here at Wright State.”

The center is also focused on the development of health care technology. Creating a simulation of a full-body virtual patient that will recognize the human voice and respond to questions is one example. “We’re trying to create these virtual patients so they’ll have personalities and emotions. One of the main things we’re concentrating on is communication,” said Gallimore. “If a patient has cancer, the doctor needs to communicate in a certain way and be empathetic. Signal processing of voice and pitch will help determine how you’re communicating with that patient.”

As Gallimore explains, the virtual patient has applications beyond health care. “If we can model people that seem very realistic, the government could use this to help people learn how to interact with people from different cultures. When someone from our Armed Forces goes to a foreign country, they could interact with these virtual people and learn about their customs and what would be considered rude or not rude.”

Receiving statewide recognition

The Ohio Center of Excellence in Human-Centered Innovation is the first Wright State center to be designated as a University System of Ohio Center of Excellence.

Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, praised the work in human-centered innovation being done by Wright State and cited its importance in bringing jobs to Ohio and making the state globally competitive.

“This recognition sends a clear message that the state is committed to supporting Wright State’s global leadership in this field,” said Fingerhut. “The selection and announcement of Ohio’s Centers of Excellence, in line with the University System of Ohio’s Strategic Plan, are key to attracting the talent and entrepreneurship that will drive the state’s economic advancement.”

“To be distinguished as an Ohio Center of Excellence further establishes the impact Wright State has on the economy of the state,” said Hopkins. “We are appreciative of the state’s continued support of our initiatives.”

The center aligns with, supports, and leverages three of four industry clusters for success as identified by the Dayton Development Coalition. These include information technology/data management, health care and human sciences, and aerospace research and development. Economic impact will occur through the commercialization of new technology, company formation, service and support, and health care cost reduction.

“As part of our commitment to this effort, we are working through the details that will allow us to target a significant set of the coalition’s entrepreneurial development resources on companies aligned with the Center of Excellence in Human-Centered Innovation to accelerate technology commercialization,” said Jim Leftwich, president and CEO of the Dayton Development Coalition.

Representatives from several Dayton area businesses and industries have committed more than $1 million in cash and in-kind services over the next two years for research in human-centered innovation. They include the Dayton Development Coalition, Kettering Health Network, Advanced Technical Intelligence Center, Radiance Technologies, SelectTech Services Corporation, Beville Engineering, Inc., SAIC, daytaOhio, and Rhino Corp.

The Centers of Excellence, as outlined in Ohio’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education, will position the University System of Ohio to be a magnet for talent and a leader in innovation and entrepreneurial activity by developing distinct missions for each institution that are recognized by students, faculty, and business leaders, while eliminating unnecessary competition for resources, students, and faculty within the state.

Meena Nagarajan

Meena Nagarajan, 28, of Chennai, India, is a graduate student in computer science who is doing research with the Ohio Center of Excellence in Knowledge-Enabled Computing (Kno.e.sis). Nagarajan is investigating how people are using online social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. She studies what people are talking about online, their choice of words, and their motivations for sharing information. She believes her work will help understand the dynamics of online human behavior and build systems that enrich online experiences for users. “As a community, we have only scratched the surface in terms of understanding microlevel nuances of user-generated online content,” she said. “What you can do with such an understanding of the pulse of a populace on practically any subject matter is simply exciting.”

Heidi Abraham

Heidi Abraham, 25, of Springfield, Ohio, is a medical student who is working with the National Center for Medical Readiness. Abraham has provided training for and helped plan for disaster response, educated local officials, and worked on integrating medical students into helping respond to disasters. “The ultimate goal of these activities is to equip members of the medical community to function well in disasters of all types, from local tornadoes to terrorist attacks to international earthquakes, providing quality medical care and management,” she said.