Madison Section Newsletter

Vol. 25, No. 3             Serving IEEE Members of South Central Wisconsin              May 2022

Newsletters are archived online at IEEE-Madison

Upcoming Meetings

IEEE-Madison At the Mallards Social Outing
Monday, May 30th at 3:30 PM
Register at: Vtools.Events Here

Madison Section News

Upcoming Meetings

IEEE-Madison Engineers in Medicine and Biology Chapter:
"Immuno-Autonomics: A Sea Change in Clinical Care"

• Wednesday, May 18th, 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
• Talk by Dr, Andrew Holman, CEO of Inmedix, Inc.
• Joint Dinner Meeting with the Technical Club of Madison
• Location: 
        Imperial Garden 2039 Allen Blvd, Middleton, WI 53562
• Please Register at the Vtools Event page  here.
  
  Note: The May meeting will be a joint in person meeting with the Technical
  Club of Madison.  People usually start arriving at 6:00 pm and the talk
  begins at 7:00 pm.  Between these two times we can enjoy a nice family
  style Chinese dinner with all you can eat.  The cost for the dinner is
  $20, cash, at the meeting.  Anyone who wants to come must register by May 14 so that
  the restaurant prepares enough food. IEEE members may elect not to eat, and then the meeting
  is FREE.

Abstract:  Twenty years after the launch of biologic treatments for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), it has become increasingly apparent that only 25% of these patients treated achieve adequate success regardless of the immune target addressed.  The solution forced immunologists to seek answers in unexpected places and to rely on technology completely foreign to them.  The immune system is regulated by the brain, specifically the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which modulates fight-or-flight adrenaline and recovery phases.  It is measured best by heart rate variability (HRV) - a techniques used to quantify stress in over 50,000 peer-review studies.  In addition, the software, hardware, and firmware engineering of HRV has been significantly upgraded to enhance its precision.

This 5-min, next-generation HRV supports patients with autoimmune disease by applying a cardiovascular platform (ECG) to assess a brain function (ANS) to solve a clinical immunology problem.  It is first to predict 52-wk biologic outcome in RA with 90% sensitivity and 95.7% specificity in a prospective, double-blind trial.  Of equal importance, optimizing adverse (fight-or-flight predominant) ANS profile increased RA remission from 25% to 79%.  The new concept, called immuno-autonomics, represents a sea change in clinical care.

Bio: Dr. Holman is the founding rheumatologist at Pacific Rheumatology Associates Inc PS, Director of Research at Pacific Rheumatology Research Inc., a former President of the Northwest Rheumatism Society (2005) and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington.   He has 25 year clinical and 19 year rheumatology research career experience with 16 lead author published papers, 25 lead author published abstracts.   For Inmedix, he has designed, completed and published 15 clinical studies, including FDA negotiations, involving nearly 1500 patients.

Research highlights include discovering and licensing use of dopamine agonists as a treatment of  fibromyalgia, applying autonomic nervous system (ANS) analysis with heart rate variability (HRV) to elevate treatment remission rates in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, and broadening understanding of pain in patients with PC3 (positional cervical cord compression) using dynamic cervical magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI).

IEEE-Madison At the Mallards Social Outing

• Monday, May 30th, 3:30 PM to (End of game ~ 8:00 PM)
• Free (2 tickets) to IEEE Member and Guest
• Access to the Duck Blind includes snacks and beverages
  
• Location: 
        2920 N. Sherman Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53704
       Building: Duck Pond
• You MUST REGISTER  at the Vtools Event page  here. 
• Include a valid Email Address and your IEEE MEMBER Number for the tickets
• Register before MAY 21st please!
  
  Note: When registering, please enter the number of tickets you want (one or two free, with or without beer). You will need to pay for the tickets beyond 2 free ones with cash or check at the game.  Ticket ordering will be through vTools. If you order more than two tickets, please be prepared to pay for the additional ticket(s) upon arrival at the Duck Pond. The tickets that include beer are $35.00, those that do not are $26.00.
  
  To be clear, you need to explicitly order all tickets, not just those for which you will be paying.
  
  Tickets will be distributed electronically, so please make sure that your email address is correctly entered.

Event:  To start the summer off, Monday, May 30 is going to be IEEE Night at the Madison Mallards. They will be playing the Lakeshore Chinooks to open their 2022 season. We hope that you'll join us. We will be sitting in "The Duck Blind", which has chairs and tables to allow mingling (unlike bleacher seating).

May 30 is Memorial Day. Although you might be going "Up North" for the three-day weekend, game time isn't until 4:00pm, so you can still make it with a slightly earlier departure than usual.

To encourage you to attend, IEEE Madison will cover the cost of two tickets. You are welcome to bring the whole family (and your neighbors), but will need to pay for tickets beyond two.

A ticket for the Duck Blind includes snacks and beverages. Order your tickets now and get in on the fun!

IEEE Section Madison News

Hugh Schmidt (Student Activities Chair) reports that it's end of semester with exams next week.  He and Bulent Sarlioglu (Student Branch Advisor) are planning to address membership and leadership over the summer.  With active students graduating it's a chance to help restore participation by student IEEE members.  An important issue is the required student Branch reporting to IEEE.  He recently met with the University of Wisconsin Wisconsin Involvement Network office and has met with the ECE Department IT staff.

Mike Stemper has developed the requirements for holding in-person meetings.  Basically, they follow Dane County's guidelines for in-person meetings.  The key indicator is the Community Level Calculations for Covid-19.  If the level is low, meetings can be scheduled indoors. We are not certain about canceling a scheduled event yet.  As is the case, each attendee should assess their own level of concern about attending.

The Mallards Social Event is an opportunity to get together with many of your IEEE colleagues and their guests and have fun. It is outdoors with a lower likelihood of covid-19 transmission.  The IEEE Executive Committee decided to do this now, rather than the end-of-year December indoor social event because of the current low Community Covid-19 rates.  We are holding an event similar to the IEEE Western Michigan Section that hosts a Summer Social Outing to the Western Michigan Whitecaps baseball park.  It is interesting to note that the once-local Madison Muskies were sold to Grand Rapids and became the Western Michigan Whitecaps!

IEEE-Madison Slack Channel Established and Open to IEEE Members

• What is Slack?: Slack is a messaging application that works on most modern computing platforms, including cell phones.  Many organizations use slack to quickly connect with people and conduct business. You can share files and create sub-channels for discussion. IEEE-Madison is using the free version of slack that has limited features.
• Executive Committee Presence: Members of the IEEE-Madison Executive Committee have joined a Slack Channel and will be available to discuss issues you might bring up.
• For more:  See this YouTube Video on Slack.
  Also see this site: What is Slack?
• Get an Invitation to Join the IEEE-Madison Slack Channel: at Slack Channel.
• Access it here: IEEE Madison Slack Channel

IEEE Madison Leadership

• Section Chair – Scott Olsen
• Section Vice Chair – Mike Stemper
• Section Treasurer – Matt Nowick
• Section Secretary – Tom Kaminski
• Webmaster – Nate Toth, Hugh Schmidt
• Membership Development Chair – Hugh Schmidt
• PES/IAS Chair – Mike Stemper
• PES/IAS Vice Chair – Dan Ludois
• PES/IAS Secretary/Treasurer- VACANT
• EMB Chapter Chair – Dennis Bahr
• Life Member Affinity Group Chair – San Rotter
• Life Member Affinity Group Vice Chair – Charles Cowie
• ECN Chair – Matt Nowick
• Young Professionals Chair – Thomas Murphy
• Section Student Activities Chair -- Hugh Schmidt
• Members at Large: Nate Toth, Clark Johnson, Craig Heilman, Dennis Bahr

Membership Upgrades

Those interested in upgrading their IEEE membership level should be aware that the process has been streamlined with much of it on-line.  The application process can start with your application as described on line here. You will have to provide the names and IEEE numbers for three Senior Members in your field.  The Madison Section Chair (Scott Olsen: olsens93@gmail.com) can help, or attend the informal networking portion of the monthly Section meetings to meet the Section Board members and discuss your intention to elevate.

About IEEE

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