NY Times: Branded a radical by hate-groups, a Muslim educator loses her school

Apalling…..When something like this happens, we all suffer. Americans, Jews, Muslims, Christians…Everyone.

From The New York Times

April 28, 2008

Battle in Brooklyn | A Principal’s Rise and Fall

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

By ANDREA ELLIOTT

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Things have not gone according to plan. Only one-fifth of the 60 students at the Khalil Gibran International Academy are Arab-American. Since the school opened in Brooklyn last fall, children have been suspended for carrying weapons, repeatedly gotten into fights and taunted an Arabic teacher by calling her a “terrorist,” staff members and students said in interviews.

The academy’s troubles reach well beyond its cramped corridors in Boerum Hill. The school’s creation provoked a controversy so incendiary that Ms. Almontaser stepped down as the founding principal just weeks before classes began last September. Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda.

In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.

The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.

Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory and butterfly effect, dies at 90

I have been fortunate in my life to meet some great people. People who have accomplished so much, and have made such vast and lasting impact on humanity, and the sum-total of human knowledge, that I can only say I am left in total awe. By simply being in their proximity and company I have learned how humble and inconsequential my own work has been. Edward Lorenz was one of those figures. Ed died today at age 90.

Ed was a professor of Meteorology at MIT who was already in his late years when I completed my Ph.D. there. Even though i did my Ph.D. in the chemistry department, my thesis advisor had his office and labs in the EAPS (Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences), which was also home to Ed. He walked our hallways, he joined us at the daily 3PM coffee hour, and he provided kind, generous, and insightful comments on elevator rides with him. I remember hearing about him as the pioneer of chaos theory and then read a bit on him and his work. I can safely say it was more mathematical than I could comprehend, but the power and importance of his work was not lost on me. I was in awe, and remain. Great people impact generations to come. He was one of them and I consider myself so lucky to have experienced his company, even if just via casual conversations an elevator rides. May his soul rest in peace.

Here is news item on his passing from the MIT News.

Edward Lorenz, father of chaos theory and butterfly effect, dies at 90

April 16, 2008

Edward Lorenz, an MIT meteorologist who tried to explain why it is so hard to make good weather forecasts and wound up unleashing a scientific revolution called chaos theory, died April 16 of cancer at his home in Cambridge. He was 90.

A professor at MIT, Lorenz was the first to recognize what is now called chaotic behavior in the mathematical modeling of weather systems. In the early 1960s, Lorenz realized that small differences in a dynamic system such as the atmosphere–or a model of the atmosphere–could trigger vast and often unsuspected results.

Client 9 and how to spend our tax-cut dollars in the US?

The business circles have been buzzing with jokes about (former) NY state governor Eliot Spitzer, who is now better known as Client 9, and his scandal involving a prostitute called Kristin (real name: Ashley Duprey). Hardly a day has gone by since the scandal broke out on news that I have not heard a joke related to it. I even joined a business conference call last week where one party dialed in and instead of using their real name, announced themselves as Client 9. There was a deadening silence… until we realized the joke and broke out into laughter.

All realities around Client 9, his beloved Kristin (who has a My Space website and yes, I did check it out), and his poor wife aside, I am amused by the whole issue. Why do we care so much about other peoples’ sex lives? Why are the holier-than-thou usually found with their pants down by their feet? and why are the democrats paying $5000+ for a sexual rendezvous while republicans are looking for it for free in public restrooms? (this is a Jay Leno joke!)

Anyways…I am outside the country right now and even here, the Client 9 story is following me. Or at least I can’t seem to get over it. Allow me my fun, please.

Here is a short letter to the editor I read today in the International Herald Tribune:

George W. Bush said each American would get a $600 check as a part of a stimulus package. If we spend the money at Wal-Mart, it will all go to China. If we spend it on computers, it will go mostly to Korea or India. If we spend it on gasoline, it will go to the Arab countries. None of these scenarios will help the US economy.

We need to keep the money in America. Currently, it seems that the only way to do that is to drink beer, gamble, or spend it on prostitution, the only businesses still left in the United States.

- Ted Rudow Menlo Park, California

Press Clipping(s): Innovation and the University-Industry Interface

A very interesting discussion on University and Industry collaboration on Innovation was initiated by Kenan Sahin, the president and CEO of TIAX (former A.D. Little Consulting’s technology practice). Check it out on Xconomy.com.

Innovation and the University-Industry Interface

from Xconomy by Kenan Sahin

Universities, Business, innovation

Kenan Sahin wrote:

Editor’s note: This article was published last July 2, during our first week in existence. Given the attention to last week’s post by Chris Gabrieli questioning Harvard’s legacy of tech transfer, we wanted to share Sahin’s thoughtful observations with a wider audience.

The buzzword of the 1980s and ’90s was “entrepreneurship.” This decade, the obsession is with “innovation” as the presumed path to riches for people and nations. Since the key generators of innovation are research universities and the key implementers of innovation are companies, there is an ever-increasing focus on making the university and industry interface more effective. But will the twain meet? It could be very difficult.

The question is critical, and there is no better place to ask than here in Kendall Square, at the confluence of great universities, multinational companies in both the life sciences and information technology, and scores of start-ups.

Though hugely complementary, academic and industrial entities hold different values and are motivated by different incentives. One key to surmounting the many obstacles to successful collaboration is to better understand the two worlds, identifying those differences that are truly reconcilable, temporarily reconcilable, and totally irreconcilable. There’s no point in dealing with irreconcilable areas.

GEO2 covered in ‘Green Car Congress’

Yes, this is a shameless plug for my company, but there is at least one useful thing here aside from that: Let me introduce you to Green Car Congress if you haven’t been introduced earlier. It is an excellent clean-tech blog, with a special emphasis on technologies associated with the automotive world. They cover exciting new technologies and companies from solar, wind and biofuels, to new battery technologies, power-trains, and of course dramatic innovations in the emissions control industry - hence GEO2.

Check it ou. Here’s a link to it (click on images to enlarge):

GEO2 Technologies Introduces New Fiber-based SiC Substrate for Diesel Particulate Filters; Ceramic Fiber Technology Enables Significant Increase in Porosity

24 January 2008

GEO₂ Technologies Inc. has introduced a new ceramic fiber silicon carbide (SiC) substrate for diesel particulate filtering. The new SiC substrate achieves high porosity and high strength simultaneously while delivering lower back pressure and high trapping efficiency, according to the company.

Unlike other SiC products, GEO₂ filters are based on a cross-linked microstructure (CLM) that increases maximum porosity to 67%—an increase of about 20 percentage points compared to other SiC filters—effectively reducing the size, weight and cost of emissions control systems.

The new GEO₂SiC filter can remove 99.9% of pollutants from diesel exhaust while achieving better fuel economy, emissions control and enhanced engine performance.

SiC-based filters have become the mainstay of the diesel light-duty vehicle market. The filters support higher temperatures, and are more robust—and expensive—than other chemistries. The common manufacturing approach is to take ceramic powders, and extrude into them into a honeycomb. This process yields filters with porosity of around 40-50%.

Porosity is a key factor in a filter—higher porosity results in lighter weight, higher catalyst loads, and reduced back pressure. Increased back pressure due to emissions treatment equipment can cause increased emissions, increased fuel consumption, and can negatively affect engine performance.

GEO₂’s breakthrough that led to the cross linked microstructure, says co-founder and vice president of product development Dr. Bilal Zuberi, was the development of a process to extrude ceramic fibers into the honeycomb filter shape.

Ceramic fibers typically look like cotton, Zuberi says, and cotton cannot be molded. The powder-based materials are like clay—add water, and it becomes moldable, and can be put through a die.

We figured out what kind of organics we can add to the fiber mix to change properties to become moldable. Once moldable, you create the shape. Then, because a ceramic product needs to be fired, during that time you burn out the organic materials. The choice of the organic and the burning cycle is key—otherwise the material just falls apart.

—Bilal Zuberi

Trying to deliver higher porosity with traditional materials can result in tradeoffs in strength and durability. The GEO₂ substrate not only delivers significantly increases porosity, but maintains its strength.

In internal testing, GEO₂ ran the new SiC materials through 1,000 regeneration cycles (most filters go for 200 cycles in their lifetimes in an light duty vehicle). Part of the strength and performance is driven by the chemistry of the SiC material, but part is because of the internal structure, says Zuberi. Where other materials get brittle fractures, the GEO₂ materials dissipate the force throughout their structure.

GEO₂’s business model calls for licensing the technology to established filter manufacturers. The company is also looking at other markets such as solutions for gasoline direct injection engines and fuel cells as well as gasification systems and fuels processing.

Benazir Bhutto’s death mourned by the Boston community

Benazir Bhutto had visited the Boston Pakistani and Pakistani-American community several times over the past several decades. Over time she had developed friendships, and strong political support from some of her friends here. I was not a big fan of her politics, but I also got a chance to meet her on some such occasions in Boston. She walked with grace and had a band of followers who stood close by wherever she went. She spoke fluently (at least in English) and said pretty much what she thought her typical US based audiences would like to hear: democracy, women’s rights, poverty, progressiveness. When politely confronted for her shortcomings, she would equally politely refute them, and carry on with her speeches on injustices meted out to her and her family.

But now she is no more. The Boston Pakistani community came together yesterday to grieve and pray for her soul at a gathering held at the Islamic Center of Boston-Wayland (see Boston Globe write up).

Environmental Protection: Picking Up Speed

Here’s an article authored by me that Environmental Protection magazine just printed. Please visit their website EPOnline to get the original copy and other relevant articles on environmental issues. It also made the cover of the magazine (nice!). The article only touches upon what is happening in the automotive world, but the hope is to spark a conversation about “what cars would/should we be driving in 5-10 years, not 50 years?”.

Picking Up Speed

Hybrid engines and other new technologies are making rapid advances in controlling automotive emissions and improving fuel efficiency
By Dr. Bilal Zuberi

Nearly four decades ago, a dramatic deterioration of air quality and repeat occurrences of smog in large cities such as New York and Los Angeles led to national recognition of the growing problem of pollution from the automotive sector. As a result, Congress passed the Clean Air Act of 1970 — the first major environmental law intended to improve air quality by reducing emissions and pollutants from their sources. A key aspect of this legislation was the identification of “criteria pollutants,” specific constituents of air pollution such as ozone, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide, which would be monitored and controlled via additional regulations.

Emissions Reduction Progress
During the past few decades, the automotive industry has made tremendous advances in reducing pollutants in auto emissions. In some cases, such as the reduction of diesel particulate emissions in Europe, the industry voluntarily introduced new and clean technologies, but, in other cases, progress is largely a result of aggressive legislation. For example, the tailpipe emissions of hydrocarbons from gasoline cars were reduced from 10.6 gallons per mile (g/mile) in 1971 to 0.06 g/mile by 2004. In addition, smog producing NOx was reduced from 3.6 g/mile to 0.05 g/mile.

Despite those reductions, the rapid growth in car sales around the world, especially in countries with developing economies such as China and India, has increased the need for a continued decrease in automotive emissions. Additionally, now that the link between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming is firmly established (See Figure C), it has become imperative to innovate around technologies that reduce emissions and improve fuel economy simultaneously. With or without pressure from global treaties to curb greenhouse gas emissions, e.g. the Kyoto protocol, the automotive industry is positioned to accept and meet these challenges.

Press Clipping(s): Nations, States, Provinces Announce Carbon Markets Partnership Targeting Global Warming

Nations, States, Provinces Announce Carbon Markets Partnership Targeting Global Warming

Green Car Congress

A coalition of European countries, US states, Canadian provinces, New Zealand and Norway have formed the International Carbon Action Partnership to fight global warming.

ICAP will provide an international forum in which governments and public authorities adopting mandatory greenhouse gas emissions cap and trade systems will share experiences and best practices on the design of emissions trading schemes. This cooperation will ensure that the programs are more compatible and are able to work together as the foundation of a global carbon market to boost demand for low-carbon products and services, promote innovation, and allow cost effective reductions so as to allow swift and ambitious global reductions in global warming emissions.

The international and interregional agreement was signed today by US and Canadian members of the Western Climate Initiative (Arizona, British Columbia, California, Manitoba, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington); northeastern US members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York); and European members including the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, and the European Commission. New Zealand and Norway joined on behalf of their emissions trading programs.

The new partnership supports the current ongoing efforts undertaken under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which all ICAP members agree has a central role in fighting global warming.

ICAP proposes to facilitate global solutions to warming by:

•  Rigorously and accurately monitoring, reporting and verifying emissions and working to determine reliable sources appropriate for inclusion in a globally linked program.
• Encouraging common approaches and furthering partners´ability to link together to expand the global carbon market, helping to prevent leakage.
• Creating a clear price incentive to innovate, develop and use clean technologies.
• Encouraging private investors to chose low carbon projects and technologies, generating the flow of money needed to support a shift to a low-carbon future.
• Providing flexible compliance mechanisms that ensure reliable reductions at the fastest pace and lowest cost.

Press Clipping(s): Chef Bilal - Bringing a new kind of kitchen to Woburn?

Wade Roush, a fellow MIT alum and a star journalist (of MIT Technology Review fame) just covered GEO2 Technologies at Xconomy.com. I love his writing style, but let me tell you this. I am amazed how quickly he understood the intricacies of not just our materials processing capabilities, but also the product performance metrics that are of importance in the emissions control industry.

Check out Xconomy.com, a Boston based technology/startup blog that has a very high quality of reporting.

Here’s an excerpt from the xconomy post on us:

What’s the common thread between the space shuttle’s thermal tiles, log-cabin mansions in Aspen, Play-Doh, pasta makers, and diesel engines? There is one—really—but to find out what it is, you have to pay a visit to GEO2 Technologies in Woburn. The clean-energy startup has turned an industrial warehouse just off I-95 into a giant kitchen-laboratory, complete with giant microwave, for baking advanced diesel-exhaust filters.

Most exhaust filters are designed as honeycombs of interlocking tunnels made of conventional ceramics. Zuberi and Lachenauer say the company spent more a year on an ultimately futile attempt to make these honeycombs by boring holes in big blocks of microfiber-based ceramics. The holes were too large and imprecise, and the process was wasteful, since more than half of the material in a bored-out microfiber block would have to be thrown away.

That’s when it occurred to Zuberi and Lachenauer that the process normally used with conventional ceramics, extrusion, might work better. But nobody had ever figured out how to blend ceramic microfibers into the Play-Doh-like consistency needed for the extrusion process, in which the material is squeezed through holes in a die, similar to the extruding discs used in pasta makers but with much more complicated geometries. So GEO2 experimented with different kind of microfibers and binding agents until it found the right blend. The company ultimately bought a whole assembly line of industrial-strength kitchen gadgets to make the filters, including a giant mixer, a torpedo-sized extruder, a 15-foot-tall microwave oven (to dry the extruded filters) and a large sintering oven (to fire them).

Boston Globe: A drive toward fuel economy

I just wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe (Aug 13, 2007). You can read it below:

A drive toward fuel economy

By Bilal Zuberi | August 13, 2007

IN THE LAST two decades, the automotive industry has been ablaze with innovation — from cars that park themselves to cars that “clean up” after themselves. Literally, the automobile has grown smarter as technology has enabled manufacturers to rethink their old ways. Unfortunately, the foresight ends there.

This past week, two bills designed to increase fuel economy standards in the United States were introduced in the House of Representatives and promptly shot down. With them, the hope that industry standards would finally catch up with innovations in the field diminished as well. Indeed, Congress has dragged its feet for far too long in forcing automakers to improve fuel economy.

Unfortunately, this latest retreat in Congress is not the first time proposed changes — changes so minor they were not nearly enough to begin with — have hinted at improvement, only to fade rapidly. In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush suggested a 4 percent annual increase in the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks by 2017. His words did little to catalyze any concrete change. Later, a proposal to increase fuel economy standards by 4 percent annually from 2020 to 2031 died an early death in the House. In short, the United States is no better off today than it was 20 years ago as far as fuel efficiency is concerned.

Compare the United States to similar economies: European fleets already average 43 miles per gallon and Japanese fleets are reaching 50 miles per gallon. While there are only two car models in the United States that achieve greater than 40 miles per gallon (both hybrid vehicles), there are more than 113 such vehicles in Europe.

The most astounding fact is that many of the European high fuel-economy vehicles are produced by US car makers. How can the government let manufacturers continue to convince the nation that a fuel economy of over 35 miles per gallon is difficult to achieve? Any rational person should not be willing to accept these manufacturers’ excuses.

If existing technology for vehicles with higher fuel economy has succeeded in Europe and parts of Asia in terms of both safety and commercial profit, why not implement policies to make similar vehicles more accessible in the United States? The success of Toyota Prius and other gasoline hybrids across the United States shows that there is verifiable national demand for more fuel-efficient cars.

Equally important is the fact that hybrid technology is not the only way to reach higher fuel economy; nearly 50 percent of the cars sold in Europe are clean diesel. Clean diesel autos not only provide a much higher fuel economy than gasoline models, but also run faster and more efficiently and last longer. Members of Congress should try renting one the next time they travel abroad.

A closer look at the diesel industry shows that innovations such as the nationwide availability of low-sulfur diesel and the commercial success of diesel particulate filters (the filters remove more than 99 percent of pollutants from diesel exhaust) have made clean diesels cleaner than other vehicles on the road. They also provide a hefty bonus of nearly 20-30 percent better fuel efficiency than gasoline engines and low CO{-2} emissions.

Clearly, the barrier to improving US fuel economy is not technological; the real obstacle is lack of political will. Automakers are demonstrating a remarkable ability to resist any changes in mileage standards, and instead they are producing larger and heavier cars with unnecessary amenities, such as chilled glove boxes. A better way to improve fuel economy would be for the government to let market forces do the work, which is what Europe has done so successfully over the past few decades.

Like Europe, the United States should price fuel at its actual cost. It is estimated that the US government subsidizes fuel at a cost of roughly $3-$10 per gallon, if one considers all the tax breaks accorded to the oil companies as well as the costs associated with regulatory oversight, pollution cleanup, and liability. The real price of gasoline in the United States, without the subsidies, would not differ much from the $6 per gallon that it is in Europe. What would you drive if you had to pay more than $100 the next time you filled up your tank? I know I would look for better performance with higher fuel economy.

Bilal Zuberi is vice president at GEO2 Technologies Inc. of Woburn, whose products include diesel emission control devices.

© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/13/a_drive_toward_fuel_economy/