Engineering to help

A growing number of U.S. universities offer classes, initiatives, programs, or degrees in engineering and sustainable development, community service, service learning, and/or humanitarian engineering. (To name just a few, in the United States [19], [20], [32], [33], [44], [53], [54].) Similar programs are also burgeoning in Australia, Canada, Europe, and elite universities in Latin America. Although these programs are conducted under a number of auspices and with varying objectives, they share one thing in common: an expressed desire to "help" communities "in need." Such programs generally hold as objectives the performance of some needed service and learning via reflection by those performing the service. To be inclusive, we refer to this diversity of programs under the umbrella term "engineering to help" (ETH).     

Simple Time-to-Failure Estimation Techniques for Reliability and Maintenance of Equipment

In 1979, MIT produced a report on maintenance with a focus on tribology. They estimated that $200 billion US dollars were spent on the direct costs associated with reliability and maintenance (R&M) [1]. At the time it was also estimated that over 14% of the 1979 gross domestic product (GDP) was lost opportunity due to improper R&M practices [2]. This level continued to increase as the industrial infrastructure aged, as well as other reliability-based reasons, to over 20% of the US GDP, or over $2.5 trillion in lost business opportunity [3]. This is greater than all but the top three economies in the world! At this time it is estimated that the R&M industry is approximately $1.2 trillion in size with up to $750 billion being the direct cost of breakdown maintenance (reactive) or generally poor, incorrect or excessive practices [4].The primary cause of the loss is that over 60% of maintenance programs are reactive, and the number is growing [2], which includes those programs which were initiated and later failed due to "maintenance entropy," or collapsing successful programs where the significant paybacks are no longer seen. At this time over 90% of maintenance initiatives fail, 57% of computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) applications fail, and over 93% of motor management programs fail [4]. The primary reason is that the present business mindset calls for immediate improvements, whereas it normally takes 12 to 24 months for a supported program to take hold and begin to show results?a rule of thumb that applies to all business practices.     

Learning Conditions in Engineering and Technology Programs

In an earlier writing [1], Dr. J. D. Forman called for "realistic and honest" efforts to assess the worth of Bachelor of Technology programs. Because of the great variety of these newly developed programs, it appears that such assessment should relate to those aspects of Bachelor of Technology programs which are common to most. It is suggested here that properly designed engineering technology programs will provide a highly credible base for an efficient learning process and that this experience can lead to advanced study. Although subsequent or more comprehensive assessments might well consider anticipated differences in the kinds of students entering the various programs, contemporary retrospect suggests that the engineering technology graduate has an advantage in transferring theoretical content to future tasks. The paper identifies valuable learning attributes of engineering technology programs, in the hope that an apprizal of this approach may eventually benefit B.S. in engineering programs.     

Multiscale modeling of respiration

To distinguish mechanisms of impaired muscle oxygen delivery and oxidative metabolism in response to exercise, we need to evaluate how these factors affect muscle oxygen utilization (UO2m), which represents cellular respiration. During human or animal exercise experiments, direct in vivo measurement of UO2m is not feasible. Instead, pulmonary oxygen uptake (VO2p), which represents external respiration, is measured noninvasively at the mouth as an indirect indicator of metabolic processes that control cellular respiration in the working skeletal muscles [1]. Factors that contribute to the differences between the dynamic responses of UO2m and VO2p are circulatory dynamics [2], ventilation, oxygen stored in blood and muscle [3], and oxygen exchange across membranes. Therefore, using VO2p as an indicator of metabolic processes may be misleading in the presence of various disease states. In chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [4], diabetes [5], [6], or chronic heart failure [7], the dynamic response of VO2p to exercise is abnormally slow. In type 2 diabetes, low muscle blood flow may impair oxygen delivery to the working muscle. Clinically, these diseases may impair the mitochondrial oxidative metabolism as well [8].     

A lossless switching technique for smart grid applications

Smart grid is an upgrade of the existing electricity infrastructure in which integration of non conventional energy sources are an integral part. This leads to the introduction of harmonics and increased switching losses in the system. Thus there is a need of loss less switching techniques for smart grid applications. Switched mode power supplies (SMPSs) are being extensively used in most power processes [1]. Developments were carried out centered on hard switched converters, where switching frequency is limited to 10 s of kHz [2]. The uses of soft switching techniques, [3], [4], [5], [6] zero voltage switching (ZVS) or zero current switching (ZCS), is an attempt to substantially reduce the switching losses and hence attain high efficiency at increased switching frequency. The soft-switching topologies belong to families namely resonant load converters [3], resonant switch converters [2], [4], resonant transition converters [5], [6], and most recently active clamped PWM converters [7], [8], [9]. The active clamp topology adds an active clamp network, consisting of a small auxiliary switch in series with a capacitance plus the associated drive circuitry to the traditional hard switch converters. The proposed paper basically deals with the design, modeling and simulation of a ZVS–PWM active clamp/reset forward converter having features like zero switching power losses, constant frequency and PWM operation, Soft-switching for all devices and Low voltage stresses on active devices due to clamping action.     

Globalizing manufacturing engineering education

The discipline of manufacturing engineering in the U.S. was established in the 1960s, a period when U.S. corporations and products dominated the global economy. Any form of engineering education that ignores the reality of multinational corporations, global supply chains, and international markets looks increasingly outmoded and provincial. The need to acknowledge the global aspects of engineering activity is beginning to be recognized in engineering education, and the need is especially acute in manufacturing engineering education. The shrinkage of the U. S. manufacturing sector portrayed by popular media is an supported by more intensive manufacturing engineering work in order to maintain the status quo of product value produced. The demand for well-educated manufacturing engineers worldwide is likely to increase in the long term. Very few U.S. manufacturing engineering programs explicitly recognize the global aspects of manufacturing at the course level.     

Potential impacts of nanotechnology development in Iran

Industrialized countries have provided heavy funding for nanotechnology and made its development a priority. Some applications are entering the market and prominent scientists have assessed nanotechnology as a potentially wonderful phenomenon [1]. The worldwide investment in nanotechnology research and development (R&D) by government organizations has increased from $432 million in 1997 to about $4.1 billion in 2005 [2]. Several developing countries also have launched nanotechnology initiatives in order to exploit its benefits and sustain economic growth [3]. But the national issues and problems of developing countries are totally different from those of industrialized countries. Poverty, unemployment, inequality, and inability to fulfill basic needs are common problems in developing countries [4]. On the other hand, industrialized countries are faced with problems like aging populations, collapsing birth rates, unemployment, security issues, and cultural chaos [5]. There are also problems that are shared, such as environmental degradation, air and water pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, and incurable illnesses [3], [5]. From the beginning, nanotechnology pioneers have suggested they will solve these problems and that they will achieve social goals through nanotechnology's development [6]. In 2001, Iran also established a council for the development of nanotechnology and started formulating a nanotechnology development plan. The country faces both opportunities and threats with respect to nanotechnology. This article presents four possible scenarios for nanotechnology in Iran, and evaluates the effectiveness of these different strategies for nanotechnology development in the country.     

Staying in Tune

When performing daily life activities, appropriate sensory-motor transformations are required to successfully map the changing relationships among one?s self, the environment, and objects moving in the environment. Our daily actions involve varying combinations of head?eye (gaze), arm-reaching, and whole-body (stepping and walking) movements. These movements depend on the interaction and transformation of both egocentric (self to object) and allocentric (object to object) representations of the environment [1], [2]. To successfully map these representations, appropriate sensory-motor transformations are required [1], [3], [4]. For visually guided movements, the primary motor cortex and its interactions with the visual cortex, mainly through the dorsal stream [5], [6], are largely responsible for mapping the sensory-motor actions [7], [8]. Many uncontrollable factors can contribute to the degradation of our balance system; hence, it is important to maintain or retrain our sensorymotor system.     

Women in engineering: challenges and opportunities

As the makeup of the electrical engineering workforce changes to include more women engineers, industry is recognizing that their competitive advantage can be strengthened by the unique perspective that women can bring to the workplace. The efforts established through academia, professional organizations, and industry have helped to attract and retain women in the engineering profession by enabling talented people to develop to their fullest potential. More importantly, a greater challenge lies with the men and women who make up the engineering profession, managers as well as co-workers. Managers need to initiate the necessary changes in the day-to-day activity in the workplace, in promotions and assignments, and in employees benefits. They also need to support programs that expose women to engineering, and co-workers need to be willing to be involved in these programs. Co-workers need to be actively involved in creating a respectful environment where everyone can feel valued. It is through these efforts that an environment will be created where competent engineers will have the opportunity to perform to the peak of their abilities and industry will reap the benefits of a diverse workforce     

Management of vaccine inventories as a critical health resource

Currently, there are a total of 33 vaccines that target human disease, and these are produced by ninemanufacturers [1]. The majority of vaccines are made by three companies: Sanofi-Pasteur (Aventis), Merck, and GlaxoSmithKline, with Sanofi-Pasteur being the largest supplier. In 2007, it shipped more than 1.6 billion doses of vaccine worldwide, including 130 million doses of influenza vaccine [2], which illustrates its global commitment to produce vaccines to meet the global demand if a pandemic were to occur. With a limited number of vaccine manufacturers in the United States, coupled with the fact that the major supplier of pandemic vaccine is not based in the United States, vaccine production should be considered a critical resource challenge for U.S. preparedness. The probability of a major healthrelated event causing a disruption in the vaccine supply chain should be of concern to health officials.     

Cortical Spreading Depression in Rats

Cortical spreading depression (CSD) is an important neurophysiological phenomenon, which was first discovered more than 60 years ago [1]. As it is associated with migraine and focal cerebral ischemia, CSD has attracted intensive attention [2]?[5]. Various methodologies including positron emission tomography [6], magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) [7], laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) [8], and autoradiography have been used to investigate CSD. Optical intrinsic signal imaging (OISI) is a neuroimaging technique that can monitor a large region of the cortex with both higher temporal and spatial resolution [9]?[11].     

Nanocomposites-a review of electrical treeing and breakdown

Polymer nanocomposites are composite materials having several wt% of inorganic particles of nanometer dimensions homogeneously dispersed into their polymer matrix. This new type of polymer composite has recently drawn considerable attention because nanocomposites or nanostructured polymers have the potential of improving the electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties as compared to the neat polymers [1]. Polymer nanocomposites are, among other applications, increasingly desirable as coatings, structural, and packaging materials in a wide range of automobile, civil, aerospace, and electrical engineering applications. Also, nanocomposites find applications in medical services, healthcare, and decorative coloring [2], [3]. These new materials show excellent mechanical properties such as high tensile strength, increased hardness and toughness, improved flexural strength modulus, and greater heat and chemical resistance. Polymer nanocomposites are characterized by an enormously large interfacial surface area between the inorganic particles and the polymer matrix into which they are embedded. This ratio is typically more than two orders of magnitude greater than that in traditional microcomposite materials. The percentage by weight of the nanoparticles is usually quite low because of the low nanoparticle percolation threshold, particularly for the commonly used platelet and nanotube particles [4]. However, when the nanoparticle content increases beyond the percolation threshold, the nanocomposite may loose its beneficial properties [5]. Various polymers such as polyamide (PA), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), epoxy resin (EP), and silicone rubber (SiR) can be combined with inorganic particles such as layered silicate (LS), silica (SiO2), titania (TiO2), alumina (Al2O3), and magnesia (MgO) [1], and there are a number of papers that describe the tests and the properties of the aforementioned combinations of materials [6]?[10].     

Good computing

Explicit attention to computer ethics began with Norbert Weiner's (1950) groundbreaking book, The Human Use of Human Beings [33]. The teaching of computer ethics arguably started in the 1970s with the distribution of Walter Maner's Starter Kit in Computer Ethics and the publication of Deborah Johnson's seminal text Computer Ethics [18], [19] (see Bynum [4] for a short history). Since that time, many excellent scholars have entered the field and much work has been done. Work on the philosophical groundwork for computing ethics [9], [31], the policy diffi culties associated with computing [22], [24], [30], and professional ethics in computing [10], [11] has multiplied and borne much fruit.     

High-voltage, electric field-driven micro/nanofabrication for polymeric drug delivery systems

One of the major challenges in drug delivery is to provide an appropriate dosage of therapeutic agents at the right time to the right location. The therapeutic agents include small molecules, macromolecules, nanoparticles, and cells, whose sizes range from less than 0.5 nm to 20 mum. Major noninvasive routes of administration include oral, pulmonary, and transdermal drug delivery. Transport barriers associated with these drug delivery routes prevent the delivery of appropriate dosage of therapeutic agents to the right location. Size is one of the determining factors for drug delivery systems. Polymeric microstructured or nanostructured systems show a great potential to stabilize therapeutic agents and overcome transport barriers by controlling the size and surface properties. A high-voltage electric field can be imposed on a polymer liquid to form microcapsules, to produce nanoparticles through electrospray or electrostatic assembly and to fabricate nanofibers through electrospinning. The addition of an electric field results in charging the components of the system and the resulting electrostatic interactions. Because electrostatic forces become meaningful at the nanoscale, electrostatic technologies attractmuch attention in microfabrication or nanofabrication [1]. There are several recent review articles available for microencapsulation [2], [3], electrospray [4], and electrospinning [5]-[9]. However, very few have investigated connections among all these processes. The major objectives of this article are to discuss mechanisms behind these electrostatic processes and explore connections among these techniques that can lead to the design and fabrication of specific drug delivery systems using an electrostatic generator.     

Cellular/Tissue Engineering

Self-repair capacity of the adult skeletal muscle is deficient in its ability to restore significant tissue loss caused by traumatic injury, congenital defects, tumor ablation, prolonged denervation, or functional damage due to a variety of myopathies [1], [2]. Conventional surgical treatments including local or distant autologous muscle transposition yield a limited degree of success [2]. Alternatively, transplantation of exogenous myogenic cells (satellite cells and myoblasts) has been proposed to increase the regenerative capacity of skeletal muscle [3]. However, the clinical outcomes from intramuscular injection of allogeneic myoblasts were compromised by numerous limitations, including poor cell retention and survival, as well as immunorejection [3], [4]. Studies of other muscle-derived stem cells [5] and genetically modified myoblasts [6] are currently in progress, for their ability to overcome these limitations and improve therapeutic efficacy.     

The Implementation and Evaluation of a University-Based Outreach Laboratory Program in Electrical Engineering

In the current climate of shortages of high-quality engineering graduates, exacerbated by reduced high school enrollments in physics and mathematics, engineering faculties are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of K-12 outreach programs. Such programs can result in students being better prepared for and better informed about engineering careers, with a consequent increase in the number of engineering undergraduates. Almost all outreach programs described in the literature are school-based; by contrast, this paper describes a university-based program. The program was born out of a desire for a university department and a neighboring high school to forge closer links and a need for the high school to provide its students with certain laboratory experiences that would best be realized with the use of specialist equipment. The outreach program provides both formal laboratory experiences and informal presentations by graduate students of their research interests. Follow-up surveys showed that the high school students found the experiences both instructive and motivating, and their knowledge of and interest in electrical engineering increased significantly as a result. All final-year physics students from the high school took part in the 2007 outreach program, and 42% of these students subsequently enrolled in the Bachelor of Engineering degree at the university in 2008.      

Possible indicators of aging in oil-filled transformers part 1: measurements

Degradation model development using basic research, and remaining life estimation, are essential for modern electrical engineering aging-asset management programs [1]. A CIGRE report [2] presents in detail the different aging factors and models, mechanisms of failure, condition-assessment and diagnostic techniques, and life assessment and extension methods.     

The windmill topology

A widely used 18-pulse clean power converter with windmill transformer topology is presented and analyzed. It provides a more economical solution to achieve harmonicmitigation in electric power systems when compared with some of the earlier methods. With the proliferation of nonlinear loads in industrial power systems, the advent of IEEE 519-1992 [1], and the increasing demand by utilities for power factor improvement, the specification of harmonic mitigation has become common [2], [3]. In the past 14 years, several patented 18-pulse converter methods have been accepted in the marketplace and are successfully applied in a variety of practical applications such as water management, oil field installations, etc., where adjustable speed drive (ASD) and harmonic mitigation are required. A threeto nine-phase unity-gain autotransformer topology with a ±20° phase shift between output voltages is first proposed in [4]. The step-up and step-down 18-pulse autotransformer topologies with a 40° phase shift between the output voltages are discussed in [5]?[9]. The winding current looping and sharing problems in early days have already been solved [10]. The challenging design problem becomes one of economics [11].     

C-Sight Visual Prostheses for the Blind

Visual prostheses based on a stimulating microelectrode array to restore vision offer a promising approach for the blind and has become a rapidly growing scientific field in neurorehabilitation engineering [1]. A number of research groups from major developed countries lead the research activities in this field [1]?[12]. The goal of the C-Sight Project is to develop an implantable microelectronic medical device that will restore useful vision to blind patients. Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration are the two leading causes for blindness, for which there have been no effective treatments, both surgically and biologically, until now. In 1968, Brindley and Lewin [2] demonstrated that electrical stimulation of the visual cortex of blind patients could elicit phosphene. Since then, several groups [3]?[12] have been doing research on investigating the possibility of using artificial prostheses based on electrical stimulation to restore vision, and the successful development and application of cochlear implants in the deaf has enhanced the researchers? confidence.