Stevens joins elite group chosen for high-speed Internet connection
HOBOKEN, N.J. — For researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology, certain Internet connections soon will become 100 times faster than before. That’s because Stevens has received a grant of $350,000 from the National Science Foundation to support high-speed Internet connectivity.
To date, the NSF has awarded grants to selected universities across the country for connections to the vBNS, which stands for "very high performance Backbone Network System." Stevens’ high-tech research agenda and advanced campus network infrastructure enabled its researchers to win this NSF grant competition and join this prestigious network. Significantly, Stevens is the only private university of its size to connect to the vBNS.
"The vBNS, also known in government circles as the Next Generation Internet, supports collaborative research for which today’s commercial Internet is too slow," explains Leslie Maltz, Chief Information Technology Officer at Stevens. Maltz co-authored the vBNS grant proposal with Dr. Patricia Morreale and Dr. Klappholz of Stevens’ Department of Computer Science.
Over the vBNS network, for example, the text of a 300-page book could be sent 322 times every seven seconds. Such high-speed connectivity makes it possible for researchers to collaborate with colleagues at other vBNS-connected institutions who are working on projects that can only be done with advanced networking capabilities.
The vBNS is only available for selected research projects, not for general Internet traffic such as e-mail. This high-speed network, created in 1995 for use by the scientific and research communities, relies on advanced switching and fiber optic transmission. Stevens has research under way in all departments of engineering and applied science that was deemed "meritorious" by NSF reviewers in recommending the award.
Stevens’ successful proposal for the vBNS connection was remarkable because every engineering department and every applied science department at the university had research under way with collaborators able to mutually benefit. The university’s five engineering departments — chemical, civil, electrical and computer, materials science, and mechanical — as well as its applied science departments of chemistry and chemical biology, computer science, mathematics and physics, all had significant research under way with other universities as well as with industrial and government partners. Partners include AT&T, Lucent Technologies, Scandia National Laboratories, U.S. Army Research Office, Department of Energy, Picatinny Arsenal Army Base, Thiokol Corporation, U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and U.S. Army Communications, Electronics, and Command (CECOM – Ft. Monmouth, N.J.).
Access to the high-speed network will allow Stevens to accelerate the pace of several areas of research. For example, with high-speed capabilities, Stevens’ coastal researchers can offer the immediate, detailed information on shoreline conditions critical to scientists and emergency management officials alike during hurricanes and nor’easters. Such information, collected by sensors placed strategically at the shorelines, is important to public safety as well as to understanding the impact of storms on coastlines.
This work is conducted in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering at Stevens and through the Davidson Laboratory on the Stevens campus. Additional work in collaboration with Stevens’ Center for Environmental Engineering requires the transmission and analysis of large databases, including satellite images, in order to identify and determine the sources of contaminated sediments in waterways. The availability of vBNS will permit such environmental research to be conducted using even greater datasets than before.
Other areas at Stevens that will benefit include the mathematical modeling and monitoring of the processing of energetics materials. This work is overseen by Dr. Dilhan Kalyon, holder of the institute professor chair and director of Stevens’ Highly Filled Materials Institute (HFMI). Dr. Kalyon and his team conduct research that includes complex modeling of manufacturing operations for energetic materials such as solid rocket fuels and some pharmaceutical materials.
The use of vBNS will permit this modeling information to be exchanged faster between research partners and will aid in the identification of precarious conditions detected during processing of dangerous materials. Early warning of incipient conditions will allow researchers to develop techniques for avoiding dangerous situations in larger-scale processing environments, such as in manufacturing plants.
The Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Design and Manufacturing Institute (DMI) at Stevens have established a virtual design and manufacturing environment, which permits researchers to reduce the design, development time and cost of manufactured products. A key component of the Automated Concurrent Engineering Software (ACES), designed at Stevens, is support for multiple manufacturing and research locations, permitting real-time monitoring. Performance and information exchange in the ACES environment will be even more dramatic with the availability of vBNS connectivity.
Stevens’ Department of Computer Science and the Advanced Telecommunications Institute are developing advanced network services and applications, including network management for active networks via mobile agents, and telemaintenance for reconfigurable devices. These innovative network services are needed for emerging infrastructure applications, and they will be key to information technology advancements in the 21st century. Access to vBNS will permit Stevens researchers to communicate with other telecommunications researchers, including collaborators at Princeton, Rutgers, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Specific information about the vBNS connection at Stevens, and the research associated with it, can be found at: www.stevens.edu/vbns/
About Stevens Institute of Technology
Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.
Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.
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