Ensuring that biomedical engineers are ready for the real world

Discusses preparing biomedical engineering students for real-world problem solving by putting theory into practice in the curriculum. It is concluded that mechanisms for preparing biomedical engineering students for real-world problem solving are numerous. Failure to incorporate such real-world experiences throughout the curriculum creates frustration for the student, particularly for the freshman or sophomore undergraduate who lacks the experience to draw a connection between theory and practice. Upon graduation, the biomedical engineer is suddenly confronted with real-world problems and design challenges that require a team of experts, project planning and execution, regulatory and quality control, financial support, and a satisfied customer. Too often, graduates are unprepared for this transition to real-world engineering.     

A capstone design experience for electrical engineers

A senior-year sequence in design required of all electrical engineering students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering is described. Commencing in the fall quarter, students form groups of either three or four and formulate a problem having multiple possible solutions which must be approved by their instructor. They must then conduct a feasibility study and present their approach to solving the problem by the end of the fall quarter. During the winter quarter, they perform the paper design and analysis and begin prototyping. Spring quarter consists of prototyping, testing, modifying, retesting, and final documentation. All projects are displayed in a trade-show-type format during the day before spring commencement. Four senior classes have completed the nine-credit sequence to date     

A new handbook for thermal power engineers

Information is given on a new handbook for thermal power engineers and on the web site supporting it.     

Ethics for engineers falls in an unstructured gray zone

As engineering is a profession, engineers must consider the impact of ethics in their behavior. The design and application of technology include the responsibility to provide quality products and services. Professional engineering includes the responsibility of creating a positive impact on society and the quality of life. The trust places a greater responsibility on the engineering profession to assure personal safety and national security. This underscores the need for engineers to understand ethical behavior and to establish ethical conduct as a foundation of their career. In fact, engineering ethics is as important to good engineering practices as mathematics, physics, design skills, and other engineering fundamentals. Thus many Professional engineering organizations such as the IEEE have developed codes of ethics as a guide for their members.     

A reactive power management proposal for transmission operators

The management of reactive resources, in particular the generation facilities under control of transmission operators, plays an important role in maintaining voltage stability and system reliability. The current practice of reactive management relies on heuristics and operators' judgments to procure reactive services. Consequently, it lacks a transparent market process and assurance that the procurement costs are the lowest. This paper presents a practical, market-based solution for managing reactive services by transmission operators. Three distinct features for the proposed solution are: (1) obligating generation facilities to provide reactive services in proportion to their active power output; (2) optimizing and integrating the reactive procurement with market operation for least-cost solution; and (3) taking into account the interactions of active and reactive powers for accurate calculation of the lost opportunity costs of generators. The proposed solution further simplifies the modeling and settlement aspects of reactive management. A model process of reactive power management is presented for use by independent transmission operators. A numerical example is also given to illustrate the application of the proposed solution.     

Teaching telecommunications to electronics technical engineers: an integral course on telecommunication systems

This paper describes the rationale and the content of a two-semester four-hour-per-week course titled Telecommunication Systems. The course covers telecommunications in an overall manner, avoiding the segmentation of the telecommunications subject and introducing the student to the theoretical and engineering aspects of telecommunications in the shortest time possible. The course consists of six consecutive modules (basics, signals and systems, transmission techniques, telecommunication links, networks and services, and market issues). Besides offering background telecommunication knowledge and providing the student with a clear and well-structured overview of the overall telecommunications subject, it aims at introducing the student to the basic methodology for treating practical engineering problems.     

History: four generations of electrical engineers

The field of electrical engineering is slightly more than 100 years old. During this time period, the profession has experienced great changes, in both its technology and practice. This article explores some of those changes from the perspective of one family of engineers who lived through most of this history, the Harder family. Their circumstances illustrate how day-to-day engineering activities have changed during the last century, but also show how, in many ways, human conditions remain very much the same in spite of these changes. It is training that allows engineers to contribute to the good of mankind. How to obtain the requisite training is a continuing question. What portion should come from professional school and what part can be obtained as on-the-job training? Where do engineering graduates obtain the on-the-job portion of their training? Each generation must answer these questions for themselves as circumstances change     

Clinical engineers: stewards of healthcare technologies

The majority of clinical engineers serve as part of the healthcare team along with physicians, nurses, technologists, and other hospital staff. The clinical engineer's role is to insure that other team members have adequate and effective technology for the time delivery of quality healthcare. In essence, clinical engineers must act as the "stewards" of healthcare technology. As effective stewards, clinical engineers need to understand the practitioners' intent, they need to possess knowledge with respect to both existing and developing healthcare technology, and they must also understand the various implications of applying the technology. Only when forearmed in this manner can clinical engineers hope to serve as successful stewards and help insure healthcare technology is applied for the greatest benefit. The implications of technology adoption and integration between diagnostic, information processing, and therapeutic systems are discussed.     

Hopfield-K-Means clustering algorithm: A proposal for the segmentation of electricity customers

Customer classification aims at providing electric utilities with a volume of information to enable them to establish different types of tariffs. Several methods have been used to segment electricity customers, including, among others, the hierarchical clustering, Modified Follow the Leader and K-Means methods. These, however, entail problems with the pre-allocation of the number of clusters (Follow the Leader), randomness of the solution (K-Means) and improvement of the solution obtained (hierarchical algorithm). Another segmentation method used is Hopfield's autonomous recurrent neural network, although the solution obtained only guarantees that it is a local minimum. In this paper, we present the Hopfield-K-Means algorithm in order to overcome these limitations. This approach eliminates the randomness of the initial solution provided by K-Means based algorithms and it moves closer to the global optimun. The proposed algorithm is also compared against other customer segmentation and characterization techniques, on the basis of relative validation indexes. Finally, the results obtained by this algorithm with a set of 230 electricity customers (residential, industrial and administrative) are presented.     

Past and present - Fractional calculus: A mathematical tool from the past for present engineers

The article gives the historical background and a brief introduction to fractional calculus. An overview of fractional calculus was also given as well as its potential applications. Examples of complex system modeled by means of fractional calculus was given.     

电气比例压力阀自校正压力调节器的设计

在对电气比例压力阀的压力控制系统动力学特性进行分析的基础上,采用三阶CARMA模型来描述实际压力控制系统,利用带有遗忘因子的递推最小二乘算法和卡尔曼滤波方法在线实时估计系统的模型参数和状态变量,在此模型基础上设计线性二次自校正压力调节器。实验结果表明,自校正压力调节器具有对系统参数变化的自适应性,使得系统具有良好的动、静态压力响应。     

DSP for practicing engineers: a case study in Internet course delivery

With the explosion of the Internet and the desire of many institutions to disseminate courses across the world, many students look to online education with promise. However, institutions planning to provide distance learning opportunities may wish to have a model to analyze before venturing forth. There are many factors that ultimately influence the methods of delivery, content, length, and technical support for an online course. This paper presents the design, implementation, and evaluation of an online course titled DSP for Practicing Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, and analyzes feedback from students who have taken the course and the staff who administered it. Different aspects of course development are discussed at length, including curriculum and media type.     

A proposal for investment recovery of FACTS devices in deregulated electricity markets

The paper presents a methodology to quantify the benefits, in terms of monetary values, of FACTS devices when used in deregulated electricity market for congestion management. The proposed methodology is used in the proposal for investment recovery of FACTS devices. Despite the long history of development and mature technology, the practical installations of FACTS devices are still limited. The main reasons for few installations are high investment cost and lack of viable measures to quantify the long list of benefits offered by FACTS device. In this respect, the methodology proposed in the paper provides a promising solution. The proposed methodology is based on establishing pricing schemes with and without FACTS devices using OPF formulation. The volume of market with FACTS devices and the increase in surplus due to them forms the basis of quantifying their benefits. The pricing scheme does not destroy the incentive effect in short run and also makes possible the provision of merchant FACTS. The proposed concept was tested and validated with TCSC in five-bus test system. Result shows that, when TCSC is used to relieve congestion in the system and the investment on TCSC can be recovered.     

A joint energy and transmission rights auction: proposal and properties

An auction-based process is proposed that allows power market participants to acquire and reconfigure financial transmission rights. The process simultaneously accommodates flowgate and point-to-point options and obligations, along with energy production and consumption futures. A sequence of auctions is held during which participants can buy and sell rights, which are then settled in a day-ahead or real-time auction, at which time all rights are cashed out. By allowing flowgate and point-to-point obligations and options to be reconfigured and exchanged, the market can decide what combination of financial rights are most useful to power generators, consumers, and traders. Rights can be specified not only for capacity of individual flowgates, but also for more complex transmission constraints, such as nomograms. Under certain conditions, we prove that the auction is revenue adequate for the market operator, in that payments to rights holders cannot exceed congestion revenues. We present a linearized (DC) auction along with a numerical illustration.     

A proposal for ground measurement techniques in substations fedexclusively by power cables

It was previously reported that when a fault to ground occurs in a substation fed exclusively by power cables, around 98% of the fault current can flow along the cable sheaths and auxiliary underground conductors, producing no local potential rise. This can modify greatly the results of ground measurements carried out in this type of substation, unless special care is taken and correction factors are suitably applied. The authors extend the experience gained during those measurement and determine a set of procedures that allow ground measurements to be made in substations fed solely by power cables. They set forth basic requirements for the measuring circuits and for handling the measured data. They then discuss power cable sheath characteristics in some step-down urban substations and ground measurement strategy for such substations