Innovative methodology to improve the quality of electronic engineering formation through teaching industrial computer engineering

An innovative educational methodology adapted to the requirements of a new era with new societal and industrial challenges for electronic engineers is proposed in this paper. This active methodology, known as the Educational Innovation Project (EIP), is being studied in the Electronic Engineering (EE) degree of the Higher Technical School of Design Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. The main objective of the EIP methodology is to improve the process of teaching and learning in order to increase student success. To accomplish this objective, the EIP method addresses various issues. From an organizational viewpoint, different structural aspects of the EE degree have been adapted, such as balancing and integrating lectures and laboratory sessions, advancing into interdisciplinary studies coordinated among all the subjects of the course, and strengthening the work in teams to tackle real engineer problems. The industrial computer engineering (ICE) subject is taken as a reference to show how these aspects have been applied. Regarding the faculty, lecturers participate in an open and permanent process of further training; attitudes toward cooperation and exchanges of experience among them are promoted; and research and reflection on new methodologies is encouraged. One of the challenges of the implementation of the EIP project is the development of multidisciplinary projects by team workers. The knowledge acquired from all the subjects is put into practice through the development of a common project to undertake real engineering problems.     

Patenting and licensing by Spanish firms: Available survey evidence

This paper presents the results of the OEPM (Spanish Patent and Trademark Office)/OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) survey on the economic and financial uses of patents carried out in 2008 among Spanish business applicants of OEPM patents. It also summarizes evidence from previous surveys. All available information indicates that only a few Spanish firms holding patents license them out. Results from the OEPM/OECD survey also reveal that obtaining public support is the first financial use of patents for Spanish firms. Responses to the same OECD questionnaire by EPO patent applicants from several European countries are quite different: licensing out is an extended practice among EPO patent holders from different countries, including Spain, and convincing venture capitalists and private investors are their two most important financial uses of patents. In our view this suggests that there are significant differences across European countries as regards the development of national technology markets and results from international surveys are driven by responses from the largest and more developed countries. The drivers and actors in markets for patents that only protect inventions nationally may be quite distinct from those in markets for patents that protect inventions regionally, such as EPO patents within Europe.     

Effect of cavity surface coating and molding parameters on pressure drop: Developing a new software for rapid calculations

Nowadays, many of the plastic components are aesthetic pieces, and they are fabric, thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs), or film coated. In the case of upholstered pieces, they are injected onto a textile tissue introduced into the mold, and they are finished with an edging process. Simulation programs used to optimize the injection process are not able to simulate the injection over fabrics, and therefore, it is difficult to select an injection machine without knowing the pressure drop inside the mold and without knowing how the parameters affect to the injection cycle or to the aesthetic aspect of this kind of pieces. This article presents a software for rapid calculations during the filling phase without the need for complex modeling. The program will be able to calculate pressure drop and other flow parameters that are fundamental for a good design of an industrial mold used in in‐mold decoration (IMD) technique. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2012. © 2011 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Using OR to adapt supply chain management best practices to humanitarian logistics

The demand for humanitarian aid is extraordinarily large and it is increasing. In contrast, the funding for humanitarian operations does not seem to be increasing at the same rate. Humanitarian logistics has the challenge of allocating scarce resources to complex operations in an efficient way. After acquiring sufficient contextual knowledge, academics can use operations research (OR) to adapt successful supply chain management best practices to humanitarian logistics. We present two cases of OR applications to field vehicle fleet management in humanitarian operations. Our research shows that by using OR to adapt supply chain best practices to humanitarian logistics, significant improvements can be achieved.     

Influence of texture and test velocity on the dynamic,high-strain,tensile behavior of zirconium

Experiments were conducted to characterize the influence of texture and impact velocity on the dynamic, high-strain, tensile extrusion of zirconium. Bullet-shaped samples were machined from a clock-rolled, highly textured Zr plate. Specimens in two orthogonal directions were tested: the extrusion direction aligned with either the in-plane (IP) rolling or the through-thickness (TT) direction of the plate. The post-extrusion microstructure and texture evolution were examined using electron backscatter diffraction microscopy and modeled using the viscoplastic self-consistent model. It was found that extrusion deformation was accomplished through a combination of twinning and slip with their relative activity greatly depending on the initial texture. In this regard, higher elongations in the IP samples as compared to the TT samples were observed at similar test velocities. This difference in ductility is discussed in terms of the material’s ability to accommodate plastic deformation. Due to the availability of a larger number of slip systems with relatively high Schmid factors in the IP samples under this configuration, plastic deformation by prismatic slip can be easily achieved, resulting in larger elongations. On the contrary, for TT samples, twinning preceded deformation by slip. This sequential deformation process, driven by the need to reorient the microstructure favorably to slip, led to diminished elongations to failure.     

SAPPHIRE: A toolkit for building efficient stream programs for medical video analysis

This paper describes the design and implementation of SAPPHIRE – a novel middleware and software development kit for stream programing on a heterogeneous system of multi-core multi-CPUs with optional hardware accelerators such as graphics processing unit (GPU). A stream program consists of a set of tasks where the same tasks are repeated over multiple iterations of data (e.g., video frames). Examples of such programs are video analysis applications for computer-aided diagnosis and computer-assisted surgeries. Our design goal is to reduce the implementation efforts and ease collaborative software development of stream programs while supporting efficient execution of the programs on the target hardware. To validate the toolkit, we implemented EM-Automated-RT software with the toolkit and reported our experience. EM-Automated-RT performs real-time video analysis for quality of a colonoscopy procedure and provides visual feedback to assist the endoscopist to achieve optimal inspection of the colon during the procedure. The software has been deployed in a hospital setting to conduct a clinical trial.     

Self Assembly–Assisted Additive Manufacturing: Direct Ink Write 3D Printing of Epoxy–Amine Thermosets

The use of self‐assembling, pre‐polymer materials in 3D printing is rare, due to difficulties of facilitating printing with low molecular weight species and preserving their reactivity and/or functions on the macroscale. Akin to 3D printing of small molecules, examples of extrusion‐based printing of pre‐polymer thermosets are uncommon, arising from their limited rheological tuneability and slow reactions kinetics. The direct ink write (DIW) 3D printing of a two‐part resin, Epon 828 and Jeffamine D230, using a self‐assembly approach is reported. Through the addition of self‐assembling, ureidopyrimidinone‐modified Jeffamine D230 and nanoclay filler, suitable viscoelastic properties are obtained, enabling 3D printing of the epoxy–amine pre‐polymer resin. A significant increase in viscosity is observed, with an infinite shear rate viscosity of approximately two orders of magnitude higher than control resins, in addition to, an increase in yield strength and thixotropic behavior. Printing of simple geometries is demonstrated with parts showing excellent interlayer adhesion, unachievable using control resins.     

Mixture and non-mixture cure fraction models based on the generalized modified Weibull distribution with an application to gastric cancer data

The cure fraction models are usually used to model lifetime time data with long-term survivors. In the present article, we introduce a Bayesian analysis of the four-parameter generalized modified Weibull (GMW) distribution in presence of cure fraction, censored data and covariates. In order to include the proportion of “cured” patients, mixture and non-mixture formulation models are considered. To demonstrate the ability of using this model in the analysis of real data, we consider an application to data from patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. Inferences are obtained by using MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) methods.