Search results for: mechatronic engineering

Authors: Paola Utreras, Yazmina Olmos, Loreto Sanhueza

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This work shows how the learning of physics is enriched with scientific inquiry practices, achieving learning that results in the use of higher-level cognitive skills. The activities, which were carried out with students of the 3rd semester of the courses of the Faculty of Sciences of the Engineering of the Austral University of Chile, focused on the understanding of the nature of the thermodynamic variables and how they relate to each other. This, through the analysis of atmospheric data obtained in the meteorological station Miraflores, located on the campus. The proposed activities consisted of the elaboration of time series, linear analysis of variables, as well as the analysis of frequencies and periods. From their results, the students reached conclusions associated with the nature of the thermodynamic variables studied and the relationships between them, to finally make public their results in a report using scientific writing standards. It is observed that introducing topics that are close to them, interesting and which affect their daily lives allows a better understanding of the subjects, which is reflected in higher levels of approval and motivation for the subject.

Keywords: basic sciences, inquiry-based learning, scientific inquiry, thermodynamics

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Authors: Sameer Ansari, Suhas Nitsure

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Biomimicry has made a big move into the built environment by adapting nature's solutions to human designs and inventions. We can examine numerous aspects of the built environment right from generating energy, fed by rainwater and powered by sun to over all land use impacts. This paper discusses the potential of a man made building which will work for the welfare of humans and reduce the impact of the harmful environment on us which we ourselves created for us. Building services inspired by nature such as building walls from homeostasis in organisms, natural ventilation from termites, artificial aggregates from natural aggregates, solar panels from photosynthesis and building structure itself compared to tree as a cantilever. Environmental services such as using CO2 as a feedstock for construction related activities, using Ornilux glasses and  saving birds from collision with buildings, using prefabricated steel for fast building members- save time and also negligible waste as no formwork is used. Maglev inspired car elevators in building which is unique and giving all together new direction to technology.

Keywords: biomimicry, green technology, maglev car elevator, civil engineering

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Authors: Shih-Wen Hsiao, Chu-Hsuan Lee, Rong-Qi Chen

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When it comes to last, it is regarded as the critical foundation of shoe design and development. Not only the last relates to the comfort of shoes wearing but also it aids the production of shoe styling and manufacturing. In order to enhance the efficiency and application of last development, a computer aided methodology for customized last form designs is proposed in this study. The reverse engineering is mainly applied to the process of scanning for the last form. Then the minimum energy is used for the revision of surface continuity, the surface of the last is reconstructed with the feature curves of the scanned last. When the surface of a last is reconstructed, based on the foundation of the proposed last form reconstruction module, the weighted arithmetic mean method is applied to the calculation on the shape morphing which differs from the grading for the control mesh of last, and the algorithm of subdivision is used to create the surface of last mesh, thus the feet-fitting 3D last form of different sizes is generated from its original form feature with functions remained. Finally, the practicability of the proposed methodology is verified through later case studies.

Keywords: 3D last design, customization, reverse engineering, weighted morphing, shape blending

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Authors: Pegah Ebrahimi, Farshad Oveissi, Iman Manavi-Tehrani, Sina Naficy, David F. Fletcher, Fariba Dehghani, David S. Winlaw

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Despite advances in modern surgery, congenital heart disease remains a medical challenge and a major cause of infant mortality. Cardiovascular prostheses are routinely used in surgical procedures to address congenital malformations, for example establishing a pathway from the right ventricle to the pulmonary arteries in pulmonary valvar atresia. Current off-the-shelf options including human and adult products have limited biocompatibility and durability, and their fixed size necessitates multiple subsequent operations to upsize the conduit to match with patients’ growth over their lifetime. Non-physiological blood flow is another major problem, reducing the longevity of these prostheses. These limitations call for better designs that take into account the hemodynamical and anatomical characteristics of different patients. We have integrated tissue engineering techniques with modern medical imaging and image processing tools along with mathematical modeling to optimize the design of cardiovascular grafts in a patient-specific manner. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis is done according to models constructed from each individual patient’s data. This allows for improved geometrical design and achieving better hemodynamic performance. Tissue engineering strives to provide a material that grows with the patient and mimic the durability and elasticity of the native tissue. Simulations also give insight on the performance of the tissues produced in our lab and reduce the need for costly and time-consuming methods of evaluation of the grafts. We are also developing a methodology for the fabrication of the optimized designs.

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics, cardiovascular grafts, design optimization, tissue engineering

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Authors: Carlos Gonzalez, Ernesto Linan

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We propose a methodology to conciliate two apparently contradictory processes in the development of secure obfuscated software and good software engineered software. Our methodology consists first in the system designers defining the type of security level required for the software. There are four types of attackers: casual attackers, hackers, institution attack, and government attack. Depending on the level of threat, the methodology we propose uses five or six teams to accomplish this task. One Software Engineer Team and one or two software Obfuscation Teams, and Compiler Team, these four teams will develop and compile the secure obfuscated software, a Code Breakers Team will test the results of the previous teams to see if the software is not broken at the required security level, and an Intrusion Analysis Team will analyze the results of the Code Breakers Team and propose solutions to the development teams to prevent the detected intrusions. We also present an analytical model to prove that our methodology is no only easier to use, but generates an economical way of producing secure obfuscated software.

Keywords: development methodology, obfuscated software, secure software development, software engineering

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Authors: Santiago Montoya-Ospina, Raúl E. Jiménez-Mejía, Rosa Elvira Correa Gutiérrez

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An experimental methodology is proposed for determining hemi-anechoic characteristics of an engineering acoustic room built at the facilities of Universidad Nacional de Colombia to evaluate the free-field conditions inside the chamber. Experimental results were compared with theoretical ones in both, the source and the sound propagation inside the chamber. Acoustic source was modeled by using monopole radiation pattern from punctual sources and the image method was considered for dealing with the reflective plane of the room, that means, the floor without insulation. Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method was implemented to calculate the sound pressure value at every spatial point of the chamber. Comparison between theoretical and experimental data yields to minimum error, giving satisfactory results for the hemi-anechoic characterization of the chamber.

Keywords: acoustic impedance, finite-difference time-domain, hemi-anechoic characterization

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Authors: Debamitra Chakravorty, Pratap K. Parida

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Cold-adapted proteases enhance wash performance in low-temperature laundry resulting in a reduction in energy consumption and wear of textiles and are also used in the dehairing process in leather industries. Unfortunately, the possible drawbacks of using cold-adapted proteases are their instability at higher temperatures. Therefore, proteases with broad temperature stability are required. Unfortunately, wild-type cold-adapted proteases exhibit instability at higher temperatures and thus have low shelf lives. Therefore, attempts to engineer cold-adapted proteases by protein engineering were made previously by directed evolution and random mutagenesis. The lacuna is the time, capital, and labour involved to obtain these variants are very demanding and challenging. Therefore, rational engineering for cold stability without compromising an enzyme's optimum pH and temperature for activity is the current requirement. In this work, mutations were rationally designed with the aid of high throughput computational methodology of network analysis, evolutionary conservation scores, and molecular dynamics simulations for Savinase from Bacillus lentus with the intention of rendering the mutants cold stable without affecting their temperature and pH optimum for activity. Further, an attempt was made to incorporate a mutation in the most stable mutant rationally obtained by this method to introduce oxidative stability in the mutant. Such enzymes are desired in detergents with bleaching agents. In silico analysis by performing 300 ns molecular dynamics simulations at 5 different temperatures revealed that these three mutants were found to be better in cold stability compared to the wild type Savinase from Bacillus lentus. Conclusively, this work shows that cold adaptation without losing optimum temperature and pH stability and additionally stability from oxidative damage can be rationally designed by in silico enzyme engineering. The key findings of this work were first, the in silico data of H5 (cold stable savinase) used as a control in this work, corroborated with its reported wet lab temperature stability data. Secondly, three cold stable mutants of Savinase from Bacillus lentus were rationally identified. Lastly, a mutation which will stabilize savinase against oxidative damage was additionally identified.

Keywords: cold stability, molecular dynamics simulations, protein engineering, rational design

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Authors: Gajanan Bhat, Vincent Kandagor, Daniel Prather, Ramesh Bhave

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Polyetherimide (PEI), an engineering plastic with very high glass transition temperature and excellent chemical and thermal stability, has been processed into a controlled porosity filter media of varying pore size, performance, and surface characteristics. A special grade of the PEI was processed by melt blowing to produce microfiber nonwovens suitable as filter media. The resulting microfiber webs were characterized to evaluate their structure and properties. The fiber webs were further modified by hot pressing, a post processing technique, which reduces the pore size in order to improve the barrier properties of the resulting membranes. This ongoing research has shown that PEI can be a good candidate for filter media requiring high temperature and chemical resistance with good mechanical properties. Also, by selecting the appropriate processing conditions, it is possible to achieve desired filtration performance from this engineering plastic.

Keywords: nonwovens, melt blowing, polyehterimide, filter media, microfibers

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Authors: Abdulrahman T. Essa, Ahmed Aied, Omar Hamid, Felicity R. A. J. Rose, Kevin M. Shakesheff

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Biodegradable poly(ester amide)s are promising polymers for biomedical applications such as drug delivery and tissue engineering because of their optimized chemical and physical properties. In this study, we developed a biodegradable polyester amide elastomer poly(serinol sebacate) (PSS) composed of crosslinked networks based on serinol and sebacic acid. The synthesized polymers were characterized to evaluate their chemical structures, mechanical properties, degradation behaviors and in vitro cytocompatibility. Analysis of proton nuclear magnetic resonance and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy revealed the structure of the polymer. The PSS exhibit excellent solubility in a variety of solvents such as methanol, dimethyl sulfoxide and dimethylformamide. More importantly, the mechanical properties of PSS could be tuned by changing the curing conditions. In addition, the 3T3 fibroblast cells cultured on the PSS demonstrated good cell attachment and high viability.

Keywords: biodegradable, biomaterial, elastomer, mechanical properties, poly(serinol sebacate)

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Authors: A. Lakshumu Naidu, K. Krishna Kishor

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This paper examines the results of an experimental study based on the engineering properties of banana peel reinforced epoxy composites. Experiments are carried out to study the effect of weight fraction on mechanical behavior of epoxy based polymer composites. The composites were made by varying the weight fraction of banana peel from 0 to 30% and banana peel were made using hand layup method. The fabricated composite samples were cut according to the ASTM standards for different experiments. Hardness test and density test were carried out at the samples. The maximum hardness, density, tensile strength, flexural strength and ILSS are getting for the material prepared with the 20 % reinforced banana peel epoxy composite. The detailed test results and observations are discussed sequentially in the paper.

Keywords: engineering properties, polymer, composite, mechanical behavior of banana peel

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Authors: Ming Qian, Davis Qian

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This study compares the different organization structures of Chinese and English writing discourses in the engineering and scientific fields, and recommends approaches for translators to convert the organization structures properly. Based on existing intercultural communication literature, English authors tend to deductively give their main points at the beginning, following with detailed explanations or arguments afterwards while the Chinese authors tend to place their main points inductively towards the end. In this study, this hypothesis has been verified by the authors’ Chinese-to-English translation experiences in the fields of science and engineering (e.g. journal papers, conference papers and monographs). The basic methodology used is the comparison of writings by Chinese authors with writings of the same or similar topic written by English authors in terms of organization structures. Translators should be aware of this nuance, so that instead of limiting themselves to translating the contents of an article in its original structure, they can convert the structures to fill the cross-culture gap. This approach can be controversial because if a translator changes the structure organization of a paragraph (e.g. from a 'because-therefore' inductive structure by a Chinese author to a deductive structure in English), this change of sentence order could be questioned by the original authors. For this reason, translators need to properly inform the original authors on the intercultural differences of English and Chinese writing (e.g. inductive structure versus deductive structure), and work with the original authors to maintain accuracy while converting from one structure used in a source language to another structure in the target language. The authors have incorporated these methodologies into their translation practices and work closely with the authors on the inter-cultural organization structure mapping. Translating discourse organization structure should become a standard practice in the translation process.

Keywords: discourse structure, information structure, intercultural communication, translation practice

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Authors: Inas S. Khayal, Weiping Zhou, Jonathan Skinner

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Healthcare delivery systems around the world are in crisis. The need to improve health outcomes while decreasing healthcare costs have led to an imminent call to action to transform the healthcare delivery system. While Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering have primarily focused on biological level data and biomedical technology, there is clear evidence of the importance of the delivery of care on patient outcomes. Classic singular decomposition approaches from reductionist science are not capable of explaining complex systems. Approaches and methods from systems science and systems engineering are utilized to structure healthcare delivery system data. Specifically, systems architecture is used to develop a multi-scale and multi-dimensional characterization of the healthcare delivery system, defined here as the Healthcare Delivery System Knowledge Base. This paper is the first to contribute a new method of structuring and visualizing a multi-dimensional and multi-scale healthcare delivery system using systems architecture in order to better understand healthcare delivery.

Keywords: health informatics, systems thinking, systems architecture, healthcare delivery system, data analytics

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Authors: Vahid Khadjeh Anvary, Hamideh Karimi Yazdi

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Generally, the tool of comparison between performance of each stage in the life of a project, is the number of project progress during that period, which in most cases is only determined as one-dimensional with referring to one of three factors (physical, time, and financial). In many projects in developing countries there are controversies on accuracy and the way of analyzing progress report of projects that hinders getting definitive and engineering conclusions on the status of project.Identifying weakness points of this kind of one-dimensional look on project and determining a reliable and engineering approach for multi-dimensional decoding information receivable from project is of great importance in project management.This can be a tool to help identification of hidden diseases of project before appearing irreversible symptoms that are usually delays or increased costs of execution. The method used in this paper is defining and evaluating a hypothetical project as an example analyzing different scenarios and numerical comparison of them along with related graphs and tables. Finally, by analyzing different possible scenarios in the project, possibility or impossibility of predicting their occurrence is examine through the evidence.

Keywords: physical progress, time progress, financial progress, delays, critical path

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Authors: Giriprasath Ramanathan, Sivakumar Singaravelu, M. D. Raja, Uma Tirichurapalli Sivagnanam

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Collagen is the abundant protein found in the skin of the animal body that has been designed to provide adequate structural support for the adhesion of cells. The dressing material widely used for tissue engineering and biomedical application has to posses good swelling and biological property for the absorption of exudates and cell proliferation. Acid solubilised collagen from the fish skin of the Arothron stellatus was extracted. The collagen with hydroxypropyl and carboxy methyl cellulose has the better biological property to enhance the healing efficiency. The inter property of collagen with interesting perspectives in the tissue engineering process leads to the development of biomaterial with natural polymer with biologically derived collagen. Keeping this as an objective, the composite biomaterial was fabricated to improve the wound healing and biological properties. In this study the collagen from Arothron stellatus fish skin (ACO) was uniformly blended separately with hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) and carboxyl methyl cellulose (CMC) as biosheets. The casted biosheets were impregnated with mupirocin to get rid of infection from the microbes. Further, the results obtained from differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), tensile studies and biocompatibility of the biosheets were assessed. The swelling, porosity and degradation of the casted biosheets were studied to make the biosheets as a suitable wound dressing material. ACO-HPMC and ACO-CMC biosheets both showed good results, but ACO-HPMC biosheet showed better results than ACO-CMC and hence it can be used as a potential dermal substitute in skin tissue engineering.

Keywords: arothron stellatus, biocompatibility, collagen, tensile strenght

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Authors: Georgeta Voicu, Cristina Daniela Ghitulica, Andreia Cucuruz, Cristina Busuioc

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In the field of tissue engineering, the compositional and microstructural features of the employed materials play an important role, with implications on the mechanical and biological behaviour of the medical devices. In this context, the development of apatite - natural biopolymer composites represents a choice of many scientific groups. Thus, hydroxyapatite powders were synthesized by a wet method, namely co-precipitation, starting from high purity reagents (CaO, MgO, and H3PO4). Moreover, the substitution of calcium with magnesium have been approached, in the 5 - 10 wt.% range. Afterward, the phosphate powders were integrated in two types of composites with chitosan, different from morphological point of view. First, 3D porous scaffolds were obtained by a freeze-drying procedure. Second, uniform, compact films were achieved by film casting. The influence of chitosan molecular weight (low, medium and high), as well as apatite powder to polymer ratio (1:1 and 1:2) on the morphological properties, were analysed in detail. In conclusion, the reported biocomposites, prepared by a straightforward route are suitable for bone substitution or repairing applications.

Keywords: bone reconstruction, chitosan, composite scaffolds, hydroxyapatite

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Authors: Veena N. Hegde, S. R. Desai

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Motivating a heterogeneous group of students towards engagement in research related activities is a challenging task in engineering education. An effort is being made at the Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, where two courses are taken up on a pilot basis to kindle research interests in students at the undergraduate level. The courses, namely algorithm and system design (ASD) and automation in process control (APC), are selected for experimentation purposes. The task is being accomplished by providing scope for implementation of research papers and proposing solutions for the current industrial problems by the student teams. The course instructors have proposed an alternative assessment tool to evaluate the undergraduate students that involve activities beyond the curriculum. The method was tested for the aforementioned two courses in a particular academic year, and as per the observations, there is a considerable improvement in the number of student engagement towards research in the subsequent years of their undergraduate course. The student groups from the third-year engineering were made to read, implement the research papers, and they were also instructed to develop simulation modules for certain processes aiming towards automation. The target audience being students, were common for both the courses and the students' strength was 30. Around 50% of successful students were given the continued tasks in the subsequent two semesters, and out of 15 students who continued from sixth semesters were able to follow the research methodology well in the seventh and eighth semesters. Further, around 30% of the students out of 15 ended up carrying out project work with a research component involved and were successful in producing four conference papers. The methodology adopted is justified using a sample data set, and the outcomes are highlighted. The quantitative and qualitative results obtained through this study prove that such practices will enhance learning experiences substantially at the undergraduate level.

Keywords: industrial problems, learning experiences, research related activities, student engagement

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Authors: Vishwesh Kulkarni, Nikhil Bellarykar

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Cellular complexity stems from the interactions among thousands of different molecular species. Thanks to the emerging fields of systems and synthetic biology, scientists are beginning to unravel these regulatory, signaling, and metabolic interactions and to understand their coordinated action. Reverse engineering of biological networks has has several benefits but a poor quality of data combined with the difficulty in reproducing it limits the applicability of these methods. A few years back, many of the commonly used predictive algorithms were tested on a network constructed in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) to resolve this issue. The network was a synthetic network of five genes regulating each other for the so-called in vivo reverse-engineering and modeling assessment (IRMA). The network was constructed in S. cereviase since it is a simple and well characterized organism. The synthetic network included a variety of regulatory interactions, thus capturing the behaviour of larger eukaryotic gene networks on a smaller scale. We derive a new set of algorithms by solving a nonlinear optimization problem and show how these algorithms outperform other algorithms on these datasets.

Keywords: synthetic gene network, network identification, optimization, nonlinear modeling

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Authors: Saeid Haghjoo, Ebrahim Reyhani, Fahimeh Kolahdouz

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The present study aimed to evaluate the understanding of the students in Tehran universities (Iran) about the numerical representation of the average rate of change based on the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO). In the present descriptive-survey research, the statistical population included undergraduate students (basic sciences and engineering) in the universities of Tehran. The samples were 604 students selected by random multi-stage clustering. The measurement tool was a task whose face and content validity was confirmed by math and mathematics education professors. Using Cronbach's Alpha criterion, the reliability coefficient of the task was obtained 0.95, which verified its reliability. The collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (chi-squared and independent t-tests) under SPSS-24 software. According to the SOLO model in the prestructural, unistructural, and multistructural levels, basic science students had a higher percentage of understanding than that of engineering students, although the outcome was inverse at the relational level. However, there was no significant difference in the average understanding of both groups. The results indicated that students failed to have a proper understanding of the numerical representation of the average rate of change, in addition to missconceptions when using physics formulas in solving the problem. In addition, multiple solutions were derived along with their dominant methods during the qualitative analysis. The current research proposed to focus on the context problems with approximate calculations and numerical representation, using software and connection common relations between math and physics in the teaching process of teachers and professors.

Keywords: average rate of change, context problems, derivative, numerical representation, SOLO taxonomy

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Authors: Karla Peitl Miller, Leomar Bravin Porto, Kaitto Correa Fraga, Nataniele Eler Mendes

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This paper presents the evaluation and study of a real reinforced concrete structure of a fertilizer storage building, constructed on a Vale’s Port at Brazil, which has been recently under refurbishment. Data that will be shared and commented aim to show how wrong choices in project concepts allied to a very high aggressive environment lead to a fast track degradation, incurring on a hazardous condition associated with huge and expensive treatment for repair and guarantee of minimum performance conditions and service life. It will be also shown and discussed all the covered steps since pathological manifestations first signs were observed until the complete revitalization and reparation planning would be drawn. The conclusions of the work easily explicit the importance of professional technical qualification, the importance of minimum requirements for design and structural reforms, and mainly, the importance of good inspection and diagnostic engineering continuous work.

Keywords: durability, reinforced concrete repair, structural inspection, diagnostic engineering

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Authors: Mohamed Khiatine, Ramdane Bahar

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The research performed during the last years has revealed that the seismic response of the soilis significantly non linear and hysteresis to the deformationsitundergoes during earthquakes and notably during violent shaking. This nonlinear behavior of soils can be characterized by curves showing the evolution of shearmodulus and damping versus distortion. Also, in this context, geotechnical seismic engineering problems often require the characterization of dynamic soil properties over a wide range of deformation. This determination of dynamic soil properties is key to predict the seismic response of soils for important civil engineering structures. This communication discusses a numerical analysis method for evaluating the nonlinear dynamic properties of soils in Algeriausing the FLAC2D software and the database resulting from geophysical and geotechnical studies when laboratory dynamic tests are not available. The nonlinear model proposed by Ramberg-Osgood and limited by the Mohr-coulomb criterion is used.

Keywords: degradation, shear modulus, damping, ramberg-osgood, numerical analysis.

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Authors: Felix Baumann, Aleksandar Milutinovic, Dieter Roller

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Up to this point business process management projects in general and business process modelling projects in particular could not rely on a practical and scientifically validated method to estimate cost and effort. Especially the model development phase is not covered by a cost estimation method or model. Further phases of business process modelling starting with implementation are covered by initial solutions which are discussed in the literature. This article proposes a method of filling this gap by deriving a cost estimation method from available methods in similar domains namely software development or software engineering. Software development is regarded as closely similar to process modelling as we show. After the proposition of this method different ideas for further analysis and validation of the method are proposed. We derive this method from COCOMO II and Function Point which are established methods of effort estimation in the domain of software development. For this we lay out similarities of the software development rocess and the process of process modelling which is a phase of the Business Process Management life-cycle.

Keywords: COCOMO II, busines process modeling, cost estimation method, BPM COCOMO

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Authors: Yinheng Li

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The remarkable advancements in large language models (LLMs) have brought about significant improvements in natural language processing tasks. This paper presents a comprehensive review of in-context learning techniques, focusing on different types of prompts, including discrete, continuous, few-shot, and zero-shot, and their impact on LLM performance. We explore various approaches to prompt design, such as manual design, optimization algorithms, and evaluation methods, to optimize LLM performance across diverse tasks. Our review covers key research studies in prompt engineering, discussing their methodologies and contributions to the field. We also delve into the challenges faced in evaluating prompt performance, given the absence of a single ”best” prompt and the importance of considering multiple metrics. In conclusion, the paper highlights the critical role of prompt design in harnessing the full potential of LLMs and provides insights into the combination of manual design, optimization techniques, and rigorous evaluation for more effective and efficient use of LLMs in various Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks.

Keywords: in-context learning, prompt engineering, zero-shot learning, large language models

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Authors: Ekin Ozer

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Assessment of structural reliability is essential for efficient use of civil infrastructure which is subjected hazardous events. Dynamic analysis of finite element models is a commonly used tool to simulate structural behavior and estimate its performance accordingly. However, theoretical models purely based on preliminary assumptions and design drawings may deviate from the actual behavior of the structure. This study proposes up-to-date reliability estimation procedures which engages actual bridge vibration data modifying finite element models for finite element model updating and performing reliability estimation, accordingly. The proposed method utilizes vibration response measurements of bridge structures to identify modal parameters, then uses these parameters to calibrate finite element models which are originally based on design drawings. The proposed method does not only show that reliability estimation based on updated models differs from the original models, but also infer that non-updated models may overestimate the structural capacity.

Keywords: earthquake engineering, engineering vibrations, reliability estimation, structural health monitoring

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Authors: Sarah Gaßmeyer, Nadine Hülsemann, Raphael Stoll, Kenji Miyamoto, Robert Kourist

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Enzymatic racemization allows the smooth interconversion of stereocenters under very mild reaction conditions. Racemases find frequent applications in deracemization and dynamic kinetic resolutions. Arylmalonate decarboxylase (AMDase) from Bordetella Bronchiseptica has high structural similarity to amino acid racemases. These cofactor-free racemases are able to break chemically strong CH-bonds under mild conditions. The racemase-like catalytic machinery of mutant G74C conveys it a unique activity in the racemisation of pharmacologically relevant derivates of 2-phenylpropionic acid (profenes), which makes AMDase G74C an interesting object for the mechanistic investigation of cofactor-independent racemases. Structure-guided protein engineering achieved a variant of this unique racemase with 40-fold increased activity in the racemisation of several arylaliphatic carboxylic acids. By saturation–transfer–difference NMR spectroscopy (STD-NMR), substrate binding during catalysis was investigated. All atoms of the substrate showed interactions with the enzyme. STD-NMR measurements revealed distinct nuclear Overhauser effects in experiments with and without molecular conversion. The spectroscopic analysis led to the identification of several amino acid residues whose variation increased the activity of G74C. While single-amino acid exchanges increased the activity moderately, structure-guided saturation mutagenesis yielded a quadruple mutant with a 40 times higher reaction rate. This study presents STD-NMR as versatile tool for the analysis of enzyme-substrate interactions in catalytically competent systems and for the guidance of protein engineering.

Keywords: racemase, rational protein design, STD-NMR, structure guided saturation mutagenesis

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Authors: Rashini Maduka, C. R. Wijesinghe, A. R. Weerasinghe

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Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) can happen when two or more drugs are taken together. Today DDIs have become a serious health issue due to adverse drug effects. In vivo and in vitro methods for identifying DDIs are time-consuming and costly. Therefore, in-silico-based approaches are preferred in DDI identification. Most machine learning models for DDI prediction are used chemical and biological drug properties as features. However, some drug features are not available and costly to extract. Therefore, it is better to make automatic feature engineering. Furthermore, people who have diabetes already suffer from other diseases and take more than one medicine together. Then adverse drug effects may happen to diabetic patients and cause unpleasant reactions in the body. In this study, we present a model with a graph convolutional autoencoder and a graph decoder using a dataset from DrugBank version 5.1.3. The main objective of the model is to identify unknown interactions between antidiabetic drugs and the drugs taken by diabetic patients for other diseases. We considered automatic feature engineering and used Known DDIs only as the input for the model. Our model has achieved 0.86 in AUC and 0.86 in AP.

Keywords: drug-drug interaction prediction, graph embedding, graph convolutional networks, adverse drug effects

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Authors: Alex Elentukh

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The paper is based on data collected from final exams administered during five years of teaching the graduate course in software engineering. The visualization instrument with four distinct personas has been used to improve the effectiveness of each class. The study offers a plethora of clues toward students' behavioral preferences. Diversity among students (professional background, physical proximity) is too significant to assume a single face of a learner. This is particularly true for a body of online graduate students in computer science. Conclusions of the study (each learner is unique, and each class is unique) are extrapolated to demystify the notion of an 'average software engineer.' An immediate direction for an educator is to ensure a course applies to a wide audience of very different individuals. On the other hand, a student should be clear about his/her abilities and preferences - to follow the most effective learning path.

Keywords: K.3.2 computer and information science education, learner profiling, adaptive learning, software engineering

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Authors: R. Ziaie Moayed, A. Khalili

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Improvement and reinforcement of soils with poor strength and engineering properties for constructing low height structures or structures such as liquid storage tanks, bridge columns, and heavy structures have necessitated applying particular techniques. Stone columns are among the well-known methods applied in such soils. This method provides an economically justified way for improving engineering properties of soft clay and loose sandy soils. Stone column implementation in these soils increases their bearing capacity and reduces the settlement of foundation build on them. In the present study, the finite difference based FLAC3D software was used to investigate the performance and effect of soil reinforcement through stone columns without lining and those with geosynthetic lining with different levels of stiffness in horizontal and vertical modes in clayey soils. The results showed that soil improvement using stone columns with lining in vertical and horizontal modes results in improvement of bearing capacity and foundation settlement.

Keywords: bearing capacity, FLAC3D, geosynthetic, settlement, stone column

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Authors: Gholamreza Madad

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The role of medical equipment in modern advanced hospitals is irrefutable. Despite limited financial resources, developing countries have taken an uncontrollable manner to the purchase of complex and expensive equipment, although they have not taken good maintenance to keep these huge capitals. In our country, limited studies have indicated that the irregularities exist in the management of medical equipment maintenance. Research method: The research was done as a cross-sectional one, and in this study, a questionnaire was used to collect data in 10 hospitals. After distributing and collecting questionnaires in person, the collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS software. Research findings: According to the obtained results from the four dimensions of the management of medical equipment maintenance, only (maintenance planning) was in a moderate position and other components with a score of less than 50% were at a low level. There was a direct relationship between the total score of maintenance management and guidance points and coordination of medical equipment maintenance, and as well as the age of hospital managers. Discussion and conclusion: In sum, we can say that problems such as lack of skilled staff in medical engineering departments of hospitals, lack of funds and unaware of the authorities of medical engineering units to their duties have caused that the maintenance situation of medical equipment maintenance is in poor condition (near average). The low inexperience of the authorities of the unit has also contributed to this problem.

Keywords: equipment, maintenance, medical equipment, hospitals

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Authors: Prompt Udomdech, Eleni Papadonikolaki, Andrew Davies

Abstract:

Building information modelling (BIM) is the major technological trend amongst built environment organisations. Digitalising businesses and operations, BIM brings forth a digital transformation in any built environment industry. The adoption of BIM presents challenges for organisations, especially small- and medium-sizes enterprises (SMEs). The main problem for built-environment SMEs is the lack of project actors with adequate BIM competences. The research highlights learning in projects as the key and explores into the learning of BIM in projects of designers and engineers within Thai design and engineering SMEs. The study uncovers three impeding attributes, which are: a) lack of English proficiency; b) unfamiliarity with digital technologies; and c) absence of public standards. This research expands on the literature on BIM competences and adoption.

Keywords: BIM competences and adoption, digital transformation, learning in projects, SMEs, and developing built environment industry

Procedia PDF Downloads 119

Authors: Brian Kozak, Ryan Ferguson, Evan Hockeridge

Abstract:

Aerospace engineering and aeronautical engineering students studying propulsion often learn about propellers and their importance in aviation propulsion. In order to reinforce concepts introduced in the classroom, laboratory projects are used. However, to test a full scale propeller, an engine mounted on a test stand must be used. This engine needs to be enclosed in a test cell for appropriated safety requirements, is expensive to operate, and requires a significant amount of time to change propellers. In order to decrease costs and time requirements, the authors designed and built an electric motor powered desktop Arduino controlled test stand. This test stand is used to enhance student understanding of propeller size and pitch on thrust. The test stand can accommodate propellers up to 25 centimeters in diameter. The code computer allowed for the motor speed to be increased or decreased by 1% per second. Outputs that are measured are thrust, motor rpm, amperes, voltage, and motor temperature. These data are exported as a .CVS file and can be imported into a graphing program for data analysis.

Keywords: Arduino, Laboratory Project, Test stand, Propeller

Procedia PDF Downloads 189