Advancing the science
of advancing interfaces
(December 5, 2008)
Moving interfaces are everywhere, James Sethian says – in flames, computer chip manufacturing and even inkjet printers. For almost 30 years, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researcher has led efforts to build computer codes that track these complex fronts. The methods he’s devised have led to better semiconductors, improved medical images and other practical applications.
Planning, placement and more: Optimization makes it easier (August 13, 2007)
Many everyday decisions may be thought of as optimization problems – problems that seek to maximize or minimize desired quantities or qualities given certain constraints. Cynthia Phillips and fellow researchers consider enormously complex optimization problems and devise algorithms that let computers solve such problems quickly and efficiently.
