houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
dr mladen kezunovic regents professor and the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was recently invited to participate in a prestigious panel organized by the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine under the leadership of the naval studies board the panel was part of a two-day workshop titled maintaining operational effectiveness for us naval forces in highly degraded environments: ensuring trusted resilient data in the face of data warfare representatives from different areas of the us naval forces community attended the workshop kezunovic was part of panel session two aggregating pre-processing and storing data kezunovic is director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center site director of the power systems engineering research center and director of the power system control and protection lab his expertise is in protective relaying automated power system disturbance analysis computational intelligence and data analytics and smart grids before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp and energoinvest in europe among his many honors kezunovic was appointed by the us secretary of energy to serve on the electricity advisory committee for the department of energy he has been named an institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) life fellow and a council on large electric systems (cigre) fellow honorary member and distinguished member he has published more than 550 papers in journals and conference proceedings and has been invited to give more than 120 lectures worldwide he is also listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee power engineering society while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 120 research projects and supervised more than 60 graduate students
the first-ever institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international conference on smart grid synchronized measurements and analytics (sgsma) will be held at texas a&m university may 20-23 2019 the conference will bring together leading researchers and developers from academia research and industry from all over the world to facilitate innovation knowledge transfer and technical progress in addressing synchronized measurements and analytics to advance smart grids registration for the conference is open and early-bird rates are available through march 15 some of the greatest smart grid minds will be joining us including terry boston dr jay giri dr žarko sumić and mahesh sudhakaran said dr mladen kezunovic sgsma conference chair kezunovic is also a regents professor and the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and the director of the smart grid center at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) boston is a 2017 presidential appointee to the national infrastructure advisory council giri before becoming a consultant and a faculty member at university of washington was the director of power systems technology and strategic initiatives at ge grid software solutions sumić is the vice president and distinguished analyst at gartner where he provides innovative strategic and operational advice to gartner utility clients using his extensive technology leadership and business experience and sudhakaran is the chief digital officer at ibm energy environment and utilities he will be sharing the biggest challenges with artificial intelligence internet of things and blockchain technology facing the three ibm global teamsenergy operations customer experience and asset management in addition to the invited speakers and guests our conference will feature more than 40 paper presentations selected among the best research teams working on smart grids said dr mario paolone technical program chair for sgsma and professor at the swiss federal institute of technology in lausanne switzerland we understand the importance of creating space for researchers to network and share their recent projects and findings sgsma is co-sponsored by the national science foundation and ieee-pes the power and energy society of ieee ieee is the worlds largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity other sponsors include tees the texas a&m university division of research the tees smart grid center and the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m along with the departments power and energy group additional conference support is provided by tees edge the professional and continuing education program for tees
a prize will be named in memory of dr m sam mannan executive director of the mary kay oconnor process safety center (mkopsc) and pioneer in process safety at hazards 29 the institution of chemical engineers (icheme) premier process safety conference in association with the mkopsc as a tribute to mannans career icheme has renamed the poster prize the sam mannan poster prize which will be given for the first time at the annual conference this year throughout my career sam mannan has always been a great friend and supporter of our work at the icheme safety center said trish kerin director of the center he was passionate about teaching process safety to undergraduates and postgraduates so it is fitting for the hazards poster prize to be renamed in his honor for several years the icheme safety center has worked with the mkopsc to explore key challenges in process safety and share lessons learned through workshops events and publications in 2017 both organizations launched process safety for the 21st century a report which set out a roadmap for the future of process safety mannan spent 20 years at the mkopsc and developed it into a leading international process safety research and education center he also helped to establish undergraduate certificates and post-graduate qualifications in process safety in addition mannan was a fellow of the icheme regents professor tees eminent professor and holder of the t michael oconnor chair i in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university sam mannan was a friend and colleague long before he joined texas a&m when he came to the university there was no safety center and in the intervening 20 years he was the major player in developing it into what it is today i am proud to have known and worked with him said dr james holste interim director of mkposc and professor emeritus of chemical engineering the conference will take place on may 22-24 in birmingham england and will feature more than 100 technical presentations from industry practitioners researchers and regulators sharing the good practice latest developments and lessons learned in process safety
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and national technical university of athens (ntua) have signed a formal affiliation agreement that will foster and strengthen collaborations between the two institutions we are excited to have the opportunity to collaborate with a highly regarded university and research institution such as ntua said dr dimitris lagoudas deputy director of tees we look forward to the innovative research and development activities that will result from this partnership as well as the opportunities for student and faculty exchanges between ntua and texas a&m universitys college of engineering the two institutions plan to: integrate and complement their capabilities for the creation of strategic plans to promote entrepreneurship innovation and development and technology transfer; define projects and pursue collaboration in areas of interest; encourage collaboration and cooperation of projects involving exchange of researchers undergraduate research assistants or graduate research assistants; and work with the college of engineering to establish a process for student exchanges mobility and exchange of faculty members and development of dual masters degrees we are really very happy to initiate today our collaboration with tees one of the oldest biggest and well-known organizations for research in engineering we are sure that this collaboration will lead to joint research activities of mutual interest and of high level that would benefit substantially both parties said professor yannis golias rector of ntua tees operates a statewide network of research centers and institutes focused on six research areas: energy systems and services healthcare information systems and sensors infrastructure materials and manufacturing and national security and safety
the autonomous material discovery and manufacturing using artificial intelligence project funded by several sources including the national science foundation and the new texas a&m university x-grants program is helping researchers at texas a&m university forge a novel path to create materials that are yet to be discovered creating new materials involves conducting tedious experiments that take decades of work soon artificial intelligence (ai) may be used to find the exact materials needed for any situation resulting in less material waste and increased progress in developing future products the vast majority of which will use materials that are yet to be discovered the grant allocates $500 000 toward project planning for 18 months ending in december 2019 we greatly appreciate the universitys generosity and support said dr satish bukkapatnam principal investigator industrial and systems engineering professor and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations institute for manufacturing systems the x-grants are all about leveraging our collective strengths to address grand societal challenges bukkapatnam said texas a&m has thriving research areas in materials science artificial intelligence data science and manufacturing research thanks to investments in facilities and professors this project will bring all of these strengths together the bottleneck in 21st century inventing materials scientists and engineers design new materials particularly metals and alloys to enhance their performance for use in aerospace defense biomedical and other applications material discovery is the bottleneck to creating highly functional and 3d printed parts with an industry average for material discovery of 15 years in the last 20 years materials scientists have worked to accelerate the design of materials in 2011 the materials genome initiative proposed the synergistic use of data advanced computations and sophisticated experiments as a way of making this a reality as engineers search for a specific material to fit a project they consider many different properties including the distribution of the materials temperature strength and structural integrity my colleagues and i have been discussing this challenge for at least a year bukkapatnam said the x-grant provided the funding needed to solve this problem 3d printing represents a new frontier but it alone could not solve the problems of materials we knew there had to be a better way what material will you use to print what intelligence can we use to 3d print and choose materials we have to create new knowledge
the closed loop solution material discovery will transform from the work of human scientists to an autonomous experimental platform said dr yu ding industrial and systems engineering professor at texas a&m university and co-lead of the project tackling this enormous challenge requires three different kinds of expertise: materials science and engineering: the knowledge of how elements come together their properties the processing structure and property relationship advanced manufacturing: how the material can be processed and how to create different shapes from a material data science and ai: how to quickly assess the data and improve efficiently instead of through trial and error the smart hybrid platform will consist of a software brain that will run the experiments autonomously through simulated workflows using a form of machine learning that automatically predicts the next best step the computers hardware can then create the product assess it and repeat the process until an optimal match is found the brain will be able to test and assess dozens of options at once testing for pressure shaping temperature and more the platform will be materials agnostic meaning it will work for any material experiments will be completely autonomous and able to use little to no input data creating a closed loop system a truly autonomous materials discovery platform will transform the way materials scientists think about the entire materials discovery cycle said dr raymundo arróyave materials science and engineering professor at texas a&m and co-lead of the project arróyave will provide computational domain expertise materials discovery is the future of this country said dr ibrahim karaman department head of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university and co-lead of the project karamans role is to help fabricate bulk new materials in a high throughput fashion the department of defense is invested in discovering developing and designing materials much faster karaman said the materials portion of the project will use instruments funded by the air force office of scientific research and texas a&ms research development funds models can be created and even models of models (metamodels) will be created but in the end physical testing must take place ding said he plans to use engineering data science to reduce a large amount of raw data points from dynamic imaging data to a handful of key process indicators the filtered data will then lead to better decision making the machine learning system will use both experimental data and prior knowledge to actively formulate the next experiment to meet the target specifications active learning will allow researchers to design the next experiment from which to learn said dr pr kumar electrical and computer engineering professor and a co-lead of the project it marks the beginning of a new era in learning for materials discovery in the end the discovery platform may give us even a better answer than we hoped for said bukkapatnam it may discover a material that even exceeds the expectations for the experiment
collaboration: the key to progress it is an interdisciplinary problem kumar said without a multidisciplinary initiative of this sort i would not normally have been involved in a research project with materials scientists researchers from diverse backgrounds are coming together and sitting at a table from a texas a&m point of view we have a fantastic team and were ready to try to create a breakthrough several professors have selected their graduate students or post-doctoral fellows they will have the opportunity and financial support to work on a project that could change the course of manufacturing as well as contribute to the field of machine learning
the deepwater horizon oil spill of 2010 was the largest oil spill in history estimated to have pumped more than 200 million gallons of oil into the gulf of mexico during a period of more than 85 days nearly a decade ago methods for tracking the flow of an oil spill and determining the extent of its negative impacts neglected processes that proved important during deepwater horizon lessons learned by researchers as a result of deepwater horizon have empowered them to create tools to better facilitate response and mitigation efforts in the event of future spills through a collaborative research effort dr scott socolofsky ap & florence wiley professor ii and the division head for environmental water resources and coastal engineering in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has developed a model that can accurately predict where contaminants from an oil spill will travel helping response teams such as the us coast guard better prepare plan for and mitigate damage to human and ecological populations we are interested in this model for response socolofsky said if there were a new type of deepwater horizon event our modeling system is fast and efficient so that it can help responders answer questions they need to know in 2000 10 years before deepwater horizon offshore experiments in norway tested models predicting the spread of oil well blowouts as part of that effort socolofsky performed laboratory experiments with air bubbles in an attempt to better understand the risks of deep-water drilling after this time oil companies started developing in deeper water and interest in studying oil well blowouts faded that was until deepwater horizon
the quest for clean energy sources has been ongoing for many years with minimal results this could all change with the development of a single device that will lie on the waters surface and utilize the ocean waves to generate electrical power dr heonyong kang a research assistant professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university first began working on this idea in 2015 as the result of the us department of energys (doe) wave energy prize competition
kangs project is the development of a surface riding wave energy converter (sr-wec) while the initial applications will be a stepping stone to eventually utilizing the renewable and clean ocean energy in the commercial sector the sr-wec will be further developed to be a competitive power supply for the large-scale grid connected system the first goal is to supply maritime markets then supply the large-scale connected system in this project we develop and test the sr-wec in a form of scaled prototype which can eventually supply electricity to various maritime markets at a competitive cost said kang lead principal investigator on the project the maritime markets to benefit from this technology include ocean observation and navigation underwater vehicle charging desalination marine aquaculture marine algal biofuels seawater mining offshore data center disaster resiliency and recovery and isolated power systems kang and his team of interdisciplinary researchers will be faced with some limitations regarding the development of the scaled prototype of the sr-wec due to being in the early stages of developing the technology required for wave energy conversion into electrical power there are multiple aspects we need to make efforts along the technical development kang said it spans from fabricating the scaled prototype out of limited suppliers and building connections in the industry to educating the public of the sr-wec and its potential impact on society the most challenging aspect of the project has been to develop the preliminary system with minimal support the doe identified $23 million for projects in next-generation marine energy devices and selected 12 research projects including kangs project the grant will help to further develop and test the prototype and prepare it for open-sea testing by the end of the project in 2022 i am most excited to unlock the renewable ocean wave energy and eventually resolve energy challenges in the various maritime markets kang said
on april 4 eight faculty members from texas a&m university gave presentations about their research during the inaugural presidents excellence fund symposium at the walter and leonore annenberg presidential conference center each speaker is a leader or a member of an interdisciplinary research team that earned project funding from the first round of texas a&ms x-grants program an initiative of the 10-year $100 million presidents excellence fund three researchers represented the texas a&m college of engineering for his project point-of-care diagnosis and monitoring of respiratory disease through exhaled breath analysis dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna a professor in the department of computer science and engineering and his research team are developing a new technology to help individuals who suffer from respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma to monitor their conditions through exhaled breath analyses called breath-on-a-chip spectrometers (bocs) unlike current devices that cost up to $3 000 the bocs will be a fraction of the cost of existing sensor-based monitors easy to operate and able to monitor multiple biomarkers with the planning grant they received for their project autonomous material discovery and manufacturing via artificial intelligence dr satish bukkapatnam professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) institute for manufacturing systems and his team are investigating the creation of new materials using artificial intelligence to build an autonomous materials discovery framework autonomous materials scientist (ams) that will be able to explore complex materials spaces as part of the grant the ams will drive the discovery of a new class of functional alloy materials the overall goal of the project is to have the ams serve as a platform facility to speed up the process materials and manufacturing process discovery for various applications dr john tracy professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and director of the texas water resources institute is part of a team led by dr wendy jepson professor in the department of geography that is working on a three-year project to examine desalination and water reuse in urban areas jepson was not able to attend symposium due to another engagement but tracy presented a video that she put together that explained how the team will examine the various pathways cities are taking to transform their urban water systems all the researchers and their respective teams shared $7 million in funding during the first round of texas a&ms x-grants program they represent 81 faculty members and other researchers from eight colleges four schools and two state agencies agriculture and life sciences architecture education and human development engineering geosciences liberal arts medicine and science mays business school the school of law the school of public health and the bush school of government and public service as well as tees and texas a&m agrilife research
the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) partnered with texas a&m university to host nuclear security enterprise (nse) day on april 8 the event offered attendees the chance to learn about career opportunities and internships for all stem majors with the nnsa labs plants and sites dr donna mischell navarro chief human capital officer for the nnsa welcomed students in her keynote speech and encouraged them to consider a career with the nnsa she explained that the nse is made up of the nnsa and its labs plants and sites the nnsa maintains and enhances the safety security and effectiveness of the nations nuclear weapons stockpile; reduces global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the us navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the united states and abroad nse day also featured several undergraduate and graduate panel discussions aimed at answering any questions students might have about working within the nse a career with the nnsa is especially great for undergraduates to consider since the positions are structured in a way to help them build on skill sets they gained during their education said ben stallwitz 09 functional manager from the pantex plant in amarillo texas many companies will even support employees pursuing masters and phd degrees as well students also had the option to attend a career fair as a part of nse day to learn more about the critical work these entities perform to protect the nation the industry is literally looking to hire thousands of new employees from all kinds of backgrounds said benjamin grover division leader from lawrence livermore national laboratory the development of nuclear weapons isnt going away and theres no way we can control or predict what other countries will do with that technology its kind of like a pandoras box and we need to be aware of it all but that also means we will always need people in this line of work the nuclear industry recognizes the important role academia plays in workforce development which is why y12 and the los alamos national laboratory (lanl) have partnered with professors such as dr pavel tsvetkov associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering and dr sunil chirayath associate professor and director of tees center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives to support and fund specialized focused courses for students the focus of our nuclear criticality safety program is to prepare future generations of nuclear criticality safety experts for the national labs and industry tsvetkov said he is teaching a course about criticality safety fundamentals together with experts from lanl and y12 while chirayath is teaching a course on the use of monte carlo n-particle transport code a computational tool that is widely used in the nuclear community the program is currently in its second year and aims to establish a pipeline of nuclear criticality safety engineers to us national laboratories and industry texas a&m is one of only a handful of prestigious universities selected to host an nse day event to engage stem students interested in a career with the nse
dr mohammad alam head of the fats and oils program at the process engineering research and development center (perdc) has received a grant from the malaysian palm oil board to fund several semesters of teaching and short courses about the significance of dietary oils and fats as essential sources of energy similar programs exist at other universities but perdcs labs and pilot plants provide a truly hands-on experience that short course attendees and students will be hard-pressed to find elsewhere short courses like alams are often largely teaching focused so his incorporation of lab practicals introduces a new element that is enticing to industry representatives who recognize academic programs as a vital part of workforce development certainly teaching is important alam assured but a lot of industrial training can only be communicated effectively through practicals and equipment demonstrations and our labs serve that purpose extremely well funding from the palm oil industry is especially noteworthy because the food and drug administration instructed the food industry to eliminate trans fats from food production by july 2018 palm oil has since been a preferred replacement oil for food manufacturers as a result alam believes industry support for the fats and oils program positions texas a&m at the forefront of new technology and innovation we are also doing a lot of work with biodiesel alam said any kind of oil can be used to produce biodiesel that includes palm oil soybean oil non-edible oils or even used cooking oils the latter especially is where alams focus lies by collecting used cooking oil from local restaurants he hopes the fats and oils program will one day be able to produce biodiesel efficiently enough to fuel the texas a&m buses in addition to the opportunity to assist with cutting-edge research students in the fats and oils program can also be involved with industry projects large companies commission the perdc to help with smaller projects at times and short course attendees often have the chance to participate in the production process the focus on practical experiences and interactions is why perdc short courses can boast successfully training thousands of people around the world the short courses often feature guest lectures and interactions with top industry and technical staff as a result seating is limited in order to maximize the learning experience alams short course trends in margarine and shortening manufacture non-trans products runs from may 12-16 registration is open through may 14
texas a&m university researchers are looking to nature for inspiration in developing a new method of underwater plasma generation using shrimp as a model – a discovery which could provide significant improvements for actions ranging from water sterilization to drilling
dr david staack associate professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and xin tang a phd candidate and graduate research assistant in the department used 3d printing technology to replicate not only the physical shape of a snapping shrimps claw but also the complex mechanism through which it generates plasma the teams research was published march 15 in the online journal science advances "generally when you look to nature evolutionary pressure makes it so that nature is very efficient at doing things " staack said "i find it interesting that the shrimp has been doing intense shock waves plasma chemistry and nanoparticle synthesis for millions of years" when the snapping shrimp – also known as the pistol shrimp – snaps its claw it shoots out a jet of water fast enough to generate a bubble which when it collapses creates a loud noise and emits light the high pressures and temperatures produced in this process lead to plasma formation the project led by staack began more than four years ago as an offshoot of a national science foundation (nsf)-funded project on electrical discharge plasma in liquids in comparing the plasma-generation process of the snapping shrimp to their electrical plasma process the researchers became curious if they could find a way to measure and replicate its properties the researchers set out to mimic the mechanics of the snapping shrimps claw with initial support from the nsf carefully studying how the sea creature creates a cavitation bubble that generates plasma at upwards of 3 000 degrees fahrenheit "in our paper we report the first direct imaging of the light emission induced by the same method the shrimp uses: the mechanically generated energy focusing on a collapsing cavitation and the following shockwave propagation " staack said "the bio-inspired mechanical design allowed us to carry out repetitive and consistent experiments on the plasma generation and indicate a significant increase in conversion efficiency compared to sonic laser and electric induced cavitation"
staack said the use of 3d printing was instrumental in the progression of this project allowing the researchers to create an accurate scaled-up model of the snapping shrimps claw in a way that was impossible just a few years ago previous attempts at replicating the shrimps behavior focused on the two-dimensional geometry of the shrimp ultimately missing some of the complex 3d processes that newer technology allowed the researchers to recreate the mechanism successfully staack and tang created a 3d model of a snapping shrimps molted claw husk five-times larger than it appears in nature to power the mechanism without the aid of the shrimps muscles the researchers implemented a mousetrap-like spring system in nature shrimp use the cavitation bubble as a weapon to generate shocks and stun their prey a scaled-up version of the shrimps mechanism could be used for a broad range of disciplines including analytical chemistry physics and material processing "shrimp use the systems as a weapon and that is certainly one application " staack said "the pressure and shocks can stun small fish or break-up a kidney stone the cavitation and dynamics can be used to modify boundary layer flow and reduce drag for a boat other applications take advantage of the chemistry of the plasma state nanoparticles can be synthesized with exotic phases due to the extreme conditions during synthesis water can be sterilized oil can be upgraded" drawing inspiration from the snapping shrimps plasma and shockwave capabilities staack is working with a team of colleagues from the mechanical engineering department on a spin-off project to advance the drilling technology used to create geothermal wells that tap into the earths natural heat by enabling electrodes on the tip of a drill bit to emit a microscopic plasma discharge the technology will help break through hard rock and streamline the drilling process moving forward staack said some of the goals for future research include determining the temperature of the plasma generated finding out how large they can scale up the mechanism and testing some potential applications they are also working on refining the most efficient version of the mechanism removing parts from the claw model that do not serve a purpose in the creation of plasma "what weve learned from this is that we dont need all of this shrimp biology " staack said "we need the little back plunger and we need the channel but we dont need the part that the shrimp uses to hit with there are some things which evolved for different reasons some of the things were doing now are figuring out what the distilled version of this mechanism is" build your own the bio-inspired snapping shrimp device is relatively easy to build making it both useful for reproducibility of the science as well as being fun for those interested to explore staack believes with appropriate supervision and less than $100 people ages 12 and up could reproduce the device the materials necessary to reproduce the device have been made available electronically through an open-access platform hosted by the texas a&m university libraries
on feb 26-28 the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) and the indian institute of technology-bombay (iit-bombay) organized a discussion meeting on nuclear security best practices sponsored by the us department of the defenses defense threat reduction agency with technical support from oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) the event was hosted by dr suneet singh at iit-bombay with organizational support from dr sunil chirayath nsspi director and associate professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university the workshop brought together subject matter experts from both the us and india to discuss the challenges and best practices for nuclear security in their respective countries these experts were pulled from nsspi ornl the international atomic energy agency and the south texas project nuclear power plant various indian universities and technical institutes the indian nuclear industry the atomic energy regulatory board (aerb) the indian navy and the department of atomic energy (dae) the meeting was attended by students and academics from various indian universities as well as representatives from the indian nuclear industry aerb dae and the observer research foundation 7456 nsspi organizes nuclear security best practices meeting with iit-bombayon feb 26-28 the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives and the indian institute of technology-bombay organized a discussion meeting on nuclear security best practices
on april 24-26 the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) and the national institute of advanced studies (nias) in bengaluru india co-organized a discussion meeting on human reliability programs (hrp) with technical support from oak ridge national laboratory (ornl) the meeting titled human reliability program in industries of national importance brought participants from the indian atomic energy regulatory board multiple units of the indian department of atomic energy various public and private universities and research centers together with subject matter experts from texas a&m university and ornl to discuss elements of hrp dr sunil chirayath nsspi director and associate professor of nuclear engineering co-coordinated the meeting along with dr m sai baba of the nias chirayath also gave a presentation titled roadmap to a sustainable human reliability program and implementation plan dr craig marianno nsspi deputy director and assistant professor of nuclear engineering spoke about insider threat mitigation strategies an element of hrp the presentations were balanced between us and indian experts in an attempt to identify good practices in safety and security with respect to hrp as well as identify hrp implementation challenges the meeting was multi-disciplinary in nature and provided an excellent learning forum for the participants us and indian subject matter experts from academia the nuclear industry nuclear research centers and think tank organizations that advise industries of national importance such as aviation and defense all spoke about hrp from their own perspectives as a result of the meeting nsspi and the nias resolved to work together to form a core working group to study and discuss hrp in the context of indian industry
in 2017 it was estimated that there were nearly 42 million veterans with service-connected disabilities many of whom required housing assistance in one form another to be able to live independently among these are about 42 000 veterans with severe spinal cord injuries and disorders researchers at texas a&m university are working on new technology that could help these veterans achieve even more independence the department of veterans affairs (va) oversees a program offered to veterans and service members with certain service-connected disabilities called specially adapted housing (sah) which provides funds to modify or construct an adapted home to meet their needs typical adaptations include ramps wider halls and doors or wheelchair-accessible bathrooms but there are many other emerging technologies that could improve home adaptions or enhance a veteran or service members ability to live independently such as voice-recognition and voice-command operations living environment controls and adaptive feeding equipment the va has defined this as new assistive technology (at) an advancement that could aid or enhance the ability of a veteran or service member to live in an adapted home
han co-leads $15m darpa grant to create rapid ways to test dangerous bacteria bacteria are microscopic organisms that thrive in diverse environments they can live within soil in the ocean or other water environments and even inside the human body bacteria can be helpful like recycling nutrients in the environment or helping with our digestion but many other times they are harmful causing diseases like pneumonia and staph infections that are difficult to treat because of lack of proper therapeutics or resistance to some antibiotics the functions and properties of the vast number of bacteria in the environment are unknown to us the risk posed by these unknown bacteria is increasing as the global environment changes populations expand and tools for genetic engineering increase which puts the general population and especially members of the military in danger to combat this potential threat the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) created the friend or foe program which tasks researchers to find new ways to detect these potential unknown bacterial pathogens both natural and human-introduced in the environment before people become ill possible target environments are soil and water because they typically have millions of bacterial cells already in them and again no one can determine easily which ones are safe or not dr arum han and a texas a&m university-led research team received a grant from the darpa program totaling more than $15 million to develop a way to quickly detect and determine which bacterial pathogens are present in a soil or water sample
texas a&m agrilife research and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) were recently awarded a grant from the us department of agricultures national institute of food and agriculture to study and develop super-repellent and anti-fouling surfaces for foods the grant will be used in their collaboration to help ensure the safety of fresh food products benefiting both consumers and the produce industry there is a need to reduce those outbreaks associated with microbial contamination that may take place in different operations along the fresh produce chain said dr luis cisneros-zevallos agrilife research food scientist and co-principal investigator for the project the surfaces we are designing avoid cross-contamination and reduce the risk of biofilm formation in recent years we have developed various types of nanotechnology-based coating with an intriguing combination of surface texture and chemistry to inhibit and prevent the attachment of microorganisms on plastics metals ceramic and glass at the laboratory scale said dr mustafa akbulut associate professor in the department of chemical engineering and principal investigator for the project with this project we will design novel coatings which are specifically tailored for the food industry and also suitable for large-scale production and application to achieve a broad impact on relevant stakeholders akbulut said food safety outbreaks in recent years have caused illnesses and deaths among consumers negatively affecting the fresh produce industry on a large scale after observing the natural morphology and chemistry of rice leaves which have hydrophobic super-repellent characteristics the team was inspired to create novel surfaces that mimicked leaves ability to reduce the attachment of microorganisms bioinspiration is key when it comes to using nanotechnology strategies specifically when you want to provide surfaces with unique characteristics of polarity and morphology akbulut said the interdisciplinary research team also includes texas a&m university food microbiologists drs matt taylor and alejandro castillo our team is a pioneer in this area in the us and worldwide cisneros-zevallos said we certainly believe that it will transform the way the fresh produce industry operates and we hope the industry will adopt many of the products our project will develop in the next few years of the grant for more information on the project read articles from the american chemical societys website or the journal food control
dr sunil chirayath director of the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) and associate professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university has been named a specially appointed associate professor to the tokyo institute of technologys (tokyo tech) world research hub initiative (wrhi) the wrhi is part of the institute of innovative research at tokyo tech which comprises of leading laboratories and research centers that aspire to accelerate international collaborative research and researcher mobility through recruiting top-level international researchers as specially appointed professors or visiting scholars facilitating interdisciplinary research and broadening the research scope of tokyo tech enhancing its global profile through chirayaths appointment the wrhi hopes to combine the capabilities of nsspi and the tokyo tech laboratory for advanced nuclear energy to advance work on generation iv reactors with particular attention to molten salt reactors chirayath will be in residence for three-month periods over three years during which he will work directly with other wrhi researchers on safeguards approaches waste handling criticality safety and uncertainty quantification for molten salt reactors dr hiroshi sagara an associate professor at tokyo tech will be his collaborative researcher for the project this appointment is the next step in a long history of collaboration between nsspi and tokyo tech on nuclear safety security safeguards research and education nsspi has hosted groups from tokyo tech for academic exchanges and exercises on radiation detection in emergency response situations and has provided internships for tokyo tech students working on their dissertations texas a&m students are frequently invited to participate in conferences workshops and other exchange activities at tokyo tech read the official announcement on the wrhi website
some of the greatest minds in smart grid research came to texas a&m university during the first ever institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) international conference on smart grid synchronized measurements and analytics (sgsma) may 21-23 during the conference leaders from academia research organizations and industry from all over the world facilitated innovation knowledge transfer and technical progress in addressing synchronized measurements and analytics to advance smart grids the theme of the conference was focused particularly on synchronized sampling and synchrophasors (time-synchronized measurements that represent both the magnitude and phase angle of the sine waves found in electricity grids) prior to the conference tutorials on synchrophasor data analytics and standards and workshops on the use of synchrophasors and synchronized sampling in protection as well as on implementation of synchrophasor data analytics were held overall more than 170 participants attended these events
the conference featured more than 40 paper presentations selected from the best research teams working on smart grids along with panel discussions invited talks and keynote presentations given by gil bindewald and terry boston bindewald is the director for advanced grid research and development within the us department of energys (doe) office of electricity he is also co-chair of the grid modernization initiative his discussion was on driving grid resilience with synchrophasors before joining the doe he worked as an engineer at the general electric company and westinghouse electric corporation was on the technical staff of the massachusetts institute of technologys lincoln laboratory and spent time in the czech republic and bangladesh
boston discussed repowering earth smart secure and sustainablethe future aint what it used to be after serving as president and ceo of pjm since 2008 boston retired in 2016 and received a 2017 presidential appointment to the national infrastructure advisory council he is past president of the association of edison illuminating companies and past president of go15 reliable and sustainable power grids a voluntary initiative of the worlds 18 largest power grid operators that serves 34 billion people the conference was a major success because it had met and exceeded all the expectations in attendance (over 20 countries were represented) expertise of individuals (vendors government utilities academia) and extensive discussions (paper sessions panels tutorials workshops) said dr mladen kezunovic sgsma conference chair regents professor and the eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and director of the smart grid center at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) we are particularly proud of the contribution the conference has made to the profession since it was the inaugural ieee conference on the subject long overdue since the deployment of synchrophasors was going on for over 10 years the next sgsma conference will be in split croatia in may 2021