houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
roz yellen a human resources employee at a 600-person aerospace manufacturing company in arlington texas has been instructed by leadership to hire 100 advanced manufacturing technicians due to their recent pivot to next-generation manufacturing technologies the company is forced to rely on an internal training process to upskill their workforce their partner dallas college annually enrolls 160 000 students and does not offer the associated education throughput to support these unique needs the manufacturing industry is facing yet another workforce pipeline shortage yellen knows that without the available workforce the company is not positioned well to meet both national and state needs hyperinflation and the erosion of the petrodollar has cut into the hiring budget and she simply cannot meet wage demand
the narrative above depicts a fictionalized event that hasnt happened…yet this type of exercise called threatcasting is a concept that operates using input from social science technical research cultural history economics trends expert interviews and science fiction to create potential visions of the future both good and bad during a threatcasting session groups will unite around a singular research question like what will happen to the defense aerospace manufacturing industry due to the rapid adoption or lack of adoption of smart manufacturing technologies the next stage of the process is similar to writing a science fiction novel or movie trailer each participant then invents a fictional person who works in the manufacturing industry and will be impacted by the research question the personas require intimate design outlining traits as detailed as fashion choices hobbies or coffee-versus-tea preference every individual character will face potential threats strengths vulnerabilities and more due to the research inputs as each story is built out participants and leaders search for cohesive thoughts or gaps among every scenario the data is then coded and aggregated to see what commonalities do or do not exist using threatcasting to envision future risks is important we have a changing environment in the form of current best practices that are rapidly evolving in manufacturing said dr darrell wallace deputy director and chief technology officer at the secureamerica institute there are potential disruptions to the industry that must be taken seriously and can be devastating this new awareness of vulnerabilities combined with the tool of threatcasting helps us prepare for the unknown historically the manufacturing industry has been technologically mature without compelling paradigm shifts in the past 20-30 years the industry has evolved significantly with the acceleration of digital manufacturing the digitization of traditional manufacturing practices and a rapidly changing ecosystem with more competitive advantages disadvantages and risks the secureamerica institutes mission is to converge disciplines to secure us manufacturing and threatcasting will be an important concept to explore experts across the institute are leveraging threatcasting tools to provide a window into the possible liabilities impacting its community of interest we are starting with and focusing primarily on texas defense aerospace manufacturing wallace said this certainly has implications for the entire texas manufacturing enterprise and national interests around manufacturing our intent is to create awareness of different threats and opportunities so we are better prepared at the regional state and national levels to withstand industry threats and disruptions
ceramic additive manufacturing has vast potential to transform numerous industries from health care to aerospace to national security and increase the economic competitiveness of the united states dr chao ma assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university will generate new insights necessary for binder jetting to produce dense ceramic parts ma recently received the faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation (nsf) one of the most prestigious awards for up-and-coming researchers the grant provides funding to support promising integrated research and education projects ma will use the career award to create a new granulated powder and an innovative powder bed formation method that will work synergistically to strengthen the use of advanced ceramics advanced ceramic materials provide a combination of excellent properties including high stiffness high hardness and superior chemical wear and heat resistance because of these properties advanced ceramics play a vital role in diverse industries and applications such as joint prostheses aircraft engines ballistic armor chemical-resistant impellers and heat exchangers these products are created by traditional ceramic manufacturing with severe geometric constraints
but ma says ceramic additive manufacturing can release these constraints and bring revolutionary impacts to the industry the implications are far-reaching with potentially positive effects on the environment for example without this geometric limitation producing dense ceramic parts could include chemical-resistant pumps and high-temperature heat exchangers to help chemical manufacturers and energy industries purify materials and generate clean energy more efficiently "in terms of research i hope to increase the properties for ceramic parts from additive manufacturing and the approach involves powder development and machine-design innovations " he said "ceramics are interesting materials they have excellent properties and are resistant to heat and chemicals additive manufacturing can give us freedom in terms of geometry" to date no powder allows binder jetting to produce dense ceramic parts the novel granulated powder consists of smartly tailored granules for density structure and strength ma and his research team will use these granules in an innovative powder bed compaction system to reach the desired density
they will carry out single and multilayer compaction tests to study the compaction behavior and trace the movement of granules and nanoparticles under pressure through particle-scale numerical simulation "it's exciting to me because ceramic additive manufacturing is much less developed and if this technology can enhance it then it will bring a lot of benefits to society " ma said as part of the career award ma will also focus on education and outreach of this new technology to various audiences including primary educators and students undergraduate and graduate students researchers and the general public to strengthen and diversify the advanced manufacturing workforce ma will host several primary educators in the lab to help them develop teaching materials for their students undergraduate and graduate students will work directly on the research and collaborate with industry partners and ma plans to create a youtube channel on ceramic additive manufacturing ma received his bachelor's degree from tsinghua university in 2010 his master's degree from the university of wisconsin–madison in 2012 and his doctoral degree from the university of california los angeles in 2015 all in mechanical engineering he was a senior mechanical engineer at cymer from 2015-16 before joining texas a&m
dr thomas overbye professor and o'donnell foundation chair iii and dr adam birchfield assistant professor both in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university co-authored a new edition of the widely used book titled "power system analysis and design the book which has been in print since 1987 introduces the basic concepts behind today's power systems and presents real-world application tools for students this new edition which was published in december 2021 covers fundamental theory and design techniques providing a blend of theory and practical results "the seventh edition of this book is updated with the latest case studies fresh problems and examples and an entirely new chapter on power system economics and optimization birchfield said we hope these updates will help this book continue to be a great resource for those teaching and learning power engineering" as a junior faculty member birchfield offers a unique perspective that is not often shared in books of this kind prior to his appointment as assistant professor birchfield was a research engineer at the electric power research institute he received his bachelors degree from auburn university in 2014 masters degree in electrical and computer engineering from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 2016 and doctoral degree in electrical engineering from texas a&m in 2018 birchfields research is in power system modeling large system transient dynamics applications of synthetic power grid datasets and the resilience of power systems to high-impact low-frequency events
prior to joining texas a&m in 2017 overbye was a professor at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign he received his bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the university of wisconsin-madison before starting his academic career he was employed with madison gas and electric company he is the original developer of powerworld simulator and a co-founder of powerworld corporation he was also the recipient of a university of wisconsin-madison college of engineering distinguished achievement award the institute of electrical and electronics engineers power and energy society outstanding power engineering educator award and is a member of the us national academy of engineering overbye has extensive experience in many aspects of electric power systems including participating in or leading numerous large-scale electric grid studies he is also the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station smart grid center the book includes educational examples of the powerworld simulator and the use of interactive computer simulations to help students understand how engineering concepts are used in actual electric grid analysis and design were delighted to have adam join as an additional author with the seventh edition of the book overbye said he adds great new expertise in this rapidly changing field and i hope he can continue to share his insights with the book readers for many years to come
approximately 98% of us manufacturers are considered small-to-medium (smes) and comprise a complex supply chain network that is the backbone of all domestic manufacturing – including support for the defense aerospace segment declining manufacturing competitiveness especially within this sector is a national challenge impacting both americas security and economic infrastructure the rapid digitization of manufacturing has exposed potentially significant vulnerabilities among smes as smart manufacturing technologies become more integrated into the us industrial base smes face a growing digital divide and increased urgency to adapt within an evolving technological landscape smes lag in their adoption of smart manufacturing technologies and the skilled personnel needed to enable this digital transformation said dr darrell wallace deputy director and chief technology officer at the secureamerica institute (sai) without a pull from the largest segment of the manufacturing base workforce education and training providers are also slow to develop a workforce pipeline that is well prepared to meet the needs of next-generation smart manufacturing the manufacturing skills gap was outlined as a significant national challenge in the reagan institutes renaissance report as manufacturers across the country struggle to fill critical positions according to the report industry surveys consistently highlight this gap as a top cause of manufacturing decline our nations smes are particularly vulnerable when the workforce pipeline fluctuates relative to changing demand driven by a plethora of evolving economic considerations said rob gorham sais executive director leveraging smart manufacturing technologies has the potential to augment workforce gaps and empower people to thrive the industry must explore how automation and smart manufacturing technologies can increase manufacturing productivity to retain and grow job opportunities for domestic suppliers particularly those in the critical small manufacturer community wallace said the secureamerica institute is facilitating conversations among key stakeholders including smes to partner with small manufacturers and ensure they remain competitive in the domestic defense manufacturing supply chain as part of these efforts sai will convene members of the texas defense aerospace manufacturing community to explore strategic challenges facing the future of defense and aerospace manufacturing in texas the event called the texas manufacturing renaissance will take place in fort worth on may 9 2022 more than 52 000 small manufacturers are part of the greater texas manufacturing enterprise wallace said we look forward to discussing how smart manufacturing impacts the future of the texas industry as well as hearing from leading aerospace and defense manufacturing companies who can share valuable insights with smes in their journey toward digital transformation
join the secureamerica institute and our texas defense aerospace manufacturing community at the texas manufacturing renaissance on may 9 2022 learn more about the event and register today
texas a&m universitys college of engineering takes pride in hiring the highest quality of engineering professionals in academia and industry and with over 40 years of experience dr jn reddy represents the pinnacle of excellence in engineering named one of the worlds top 2% of scientists in a 2021 stanford university survey reddy is a testament to years of advancement in the vast field of engineering q: in your words what does it mean to have excellence in engineering how have you seen this demonstrated a: the quality of being outstanding in what we do is excellence in an academic institution this is measured in terms of the degree to which a teacher succeeds in explaining concepts equipping the student with problem-solving tools and creating and disseminating knowledge that has broader (societal) impact demonstration of excellence in engineering also comes in educating students to become inventors entrepreneurs and leaders; in publishing scientific articles that pave the way for others to extend and implement; and in providing intellectual leadership exemplifying excellence in my case was through education (passionate teaching and authoring textbooks that facilitate learning) and the publication of ideas that allowed other researchers to extend advance and use in the engineering work place q: the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering has strived to consistently deliver excellence in engineering education how has excellence in engineering mechanical engineering specifically evolved over the years a: the college of engineering at texas a&m has come a long way from primarily a teaching school to one of the top public engineering schools in the country we have hired many good faculty members who have their doctoral degrees from top engineering departments in the country in particular the mechanical engineering department at texas a&m is currently at its peak in terms of the reputation and stature the department has some of the most well-known and highly-cited researchers in the world mentoring the next generation of scientists it is hoped that our faculty with their significant educational research contributions with societal impact and professional service that advances the material wellbeing of the society (eg mentoring the first-generation students and underrepresented minorities) will take the department to newer heights q: what do you think the future holds for the mechanical engineering industry a: mechanical engineering is the mother of all engineering disciplines the future of mechanical engineering is bright and mechanical engineering at texas a&m continues to provide a large percentage of engineering graduates from the state to the workforce around the country in my opinion it will continue to be the discipline of choice because of the versatility and variety of jobs for which the graduates are qualified for a long time to come
three-dimensional (3d) printing technology has emerged as one of the most important tools in the ever-evolving space of tissue engineering but 3d printing living tissues referred to as bioprinting presents significant challenges which a team in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is working to address one challenge in bioprinting is the need for the bioink or the material being printed to solidify quickly after printing to hold the desired shape at the same time ideal bioinks should also be able to print under low shear force so as to not damage living cells that are dispersed within the material this requires very specific properties that are not easy to achieve with traditional bioinks said dr daniel alge one of the researchers on the project and an associate professor in the biomedical engineering department hydrogel microparticle (hmp) bioinks make it easier and significantly expand the toolkit of soft biomaterials that we can use in 3d bioprinting hmps can be used to print soft tissue-like structures because the microparticles can move past one another when pressure is applied but are also sticky enough to hold a 3d shape after being printed as an emerging bioink there are still unanswered questions about printing with hmps since they behave differently from other bioinks that is what the team researched and recently published in a paper about in the journal science advances the project includes several biomedical engineering faculty: alge dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor and dr abhishek jain assistant professor in their study the team sought to understand factors that affect how hmps are extruded from a syringe and nozzle during printing they specifically studied how the particles jam and then flow through a series of experimental and computational methods the team found the interplay between external resistance from the printing apparatus and the physical properties of the microparticles they also showed there is a tradeoff between factors that affect print fidelity and the viability of cells contained within the bioink bioprinting is an exciting field with enormous potential for meeting the need for transplantable organs and tissues alge said however in order to advance bioprinting from the realm of science fiction to reality we need innovative materials like hmp bioinks ultimately our findings can be used to improve the printability of hmps and facilitate their broader use in 3d bioprinting the team aims to apply their knowledge about how to engineer and bioprint with hmp bioinks to the production of functional tissues their target is a bio-artificial pancreas to treat diabetes a project that the team received an x-grant from the texas a&m president's excellence fund to pursue in type 1 diabetes the body does not produce insulin because pancreatic beta cells are attacked by the immune system the goal is to design a 3d-printed bio-artificial pancreas with a vascularized network to protect encapsulated islets that contain the beta cells
for much of his career texas a&m university nuclear engineer dr marvin l adams has been considered one of the nations foremost experts on nuclear security outside of the federal government now hes on the inside on april 6 congress confirmed adams appointment by president joe biden to serve as deputy administrator for defense programs within the department of energy adams will oversee federal programs that ensure the safety security and effectiveness of the us nuclear weapons stockpile he will help manage a $16 billion budget in the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) the agency oversees the design maintenance assessment manufacturing and dismantlement of all us nuclear warheads and related programs that develop and maintain all the associated science engineering technology supply chain and manufacturing capabilities adams position is one of four top jobs in the nnsa that requires senate approval i look forward to working with the outstanding nnsa team –– the federal workforce and the workforce at the laboratories plants and sites –– to deliver our unique essential contributions to us national security adams said adams has been the htri professor of nuclear engineering a regents fellow and the director of national laboratories mission support for the texas a&m university system after 30 years of research and teaching at texas a&m service as an advisor for the white house and now a key administrator in the department of energy dr adams remains as humble as the day i met him said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering his expertise and reasoned voice will be a tremendous asset to president bidens national security team our department is extremely grateful of dr adams impactful work and his contributions to our students our college and our society we are very proud of him and wish him well as he embarks to our nations capital to selflessly serve said dr michael nastasi nuclear engineering department head his research has advanced the nations ability to use complex computer algorithms to help assess weapons reliability while explosive nuclear testing is banned as an educator adams has taught generations of engineers including many who have gone on to careers at the three national nuclear security laboratories los alamos national laboratory lawrence livermore national laboratory and sandia national laboratories adams also has served for decades in advisory roles at the nations nuclear labs i am grateful to texas a&m for allowing me to pursue national service opportunities during my three decades here adams said before joining the texas a&m faculty adams was a physicist at lawrence livermore from 1986 to 1992 he received his masters and doctoral degrees in nuclear engineering from the university of michigan and his bachelors degree in nuclear engineering from mississippi state university last fall biden named adams among 30 distinguished americans to serve on the presidents council of advisors on science and technology a group from outside the government that he has to resign from now read more about adams distinguished career
texas a&m university researchers dr sam noynaert and fred dupriest recently presented results from a geothermal project that drastically reduced well-completion times and drill bit changeouts to an audience of mostly petroleum drillers the department of energy (doe) funded the project which improves geothermal drilling practices with physics-based instruction and oil and gas techniques to lower the high cost of drilling geothermal wells the time and equipment saved suggests the oil industry should take note how you use a technology is usually more important than what technology you use said dupriest it's not just the geothermal industry that benefits from this the petroleum industry could have an enormous opportunity here dupriest and noynaert professors of practice in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering presented their results in march during the international association of drilling contractors and the society of petroleum engineers conference and exhibition both geothermal and oil industry drillers have access to the same equipment and face similar challenges the difference is that petroleum wells are drilled in vast numbers compared to geothermal wells so those companies have more experience cutting costs and drilling times yet oil companies often lack time to question unusual bit wear or understand all the fundamentals behind drilling processes so problems are usually met with quick fixes based on guesswork the doe project proves that basic knowledge of physical principles when coupled with communication and teamwork to document drilling issues or limiters reduces costs and improves the ability to address and fix problems with information not guesses
the advent of blockchains has ignited much excitement not only for their realization of novel financial instruments but also for offering alternative solutions to classical problems in fault-tolerant distributed computing and cryptographic protocols blockchains are managed and built by miners and are used in various settings the best known being a distributed ledger that keeps a record of all transactions between users in cryptocurrency systems such as bitcoin underlying many such protocols is a primitive known as a "proof of work" (pow) which for over 20 years has been liberally applied in cryptography and security literature to a variety of settings including spam mitigation sybil attacks and denial-of-service protection its role in the design of blockchain protocols however is arguably its most impactful application as miners receive new transactions the data are entered into a new block but a pow must be solved to add new blocks to the chain pow is an algorithm used to validate bitcoin transactions it is generated by bitcoin miners competing to create new bitcoin by being the first to solve a complex mathematical puzzle which requires very expensive computers and a lot of electricity once a miner finds a solution to a puzzle they broadcast the block to the network so that other miners can verify that it's correct miners who succeed are then given a fixed amount of bitcoin as a reward however despite the evolution of our understanding of the pow primitive pinning down the exact properties sufficient to prove the security of bitcoin and related protocols has been elusive in fact all existing instances of the primitive have relied on idealized assumptions a team led by dr juan garay has identified and proven the concrete properties either number-theoretic or pertaining to hash functions they were then used to construct blockchain protocols that are secure and safe to use with their new algorithms the researchers demonstrated that such pows can thwart adversaries and environments collectively owning less than half of the computational power in the network garay's early work on cryptography in blockchain was first published in the proceedings of eurocrypt 2015 a top venue for the dissemination of cryptography research the techniques underlying pows transcend the blockchain context they can in fact be applied to other important problems in the area of cryptographic protocols thus circumventing well-known impossibility results a new paradigm that garay calls "resource-restricted cryptography" "it's a new way of thinking about cryptography in the sense that things do not have to be extremely difficult only moderately difficult " said garay "and then you can still do meaningful things like blockchains cryptocurrencies are just one example my work in general is understanding this landscape and coming up with the mathematics that explain it and make it work"
the world has been undergoing a digital transformation over the past few decades as technology has advanced the rise of digital platforms such as cloud computing blockchains and machine-learning services is leading to numerous new applications and transforming daily life however users often dont know the others they are dealing with and it is challenging to establish trust on these platforms texas a&m university researchers are working to improve this trust dr yupeng zhang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering recently received the national science foundations (nsf) faculty early career development (career) award for his research project towards efficient and scalable zero-knowledge proofs the focus of his research is on developing efficient and scalable zero-knowledge proof schemes an important cryptographic primitive (well-established low-level cryptographic algorithms used to build cryptographic protocols) to ensure data privacy and computation integrity simultaneously in cryptography a zero-knowledge proof is a method by which one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that a given statement is true while the prover avoids conveying any additional information apart from the fact that the statement is indeed true the essence of zero-knowledge proof is that it is trivial to prove that one possesses knowledge of certain information by simply revealing it; the challenge is to prove such possession without revealing the information itself or any additional information my research is to enhance the security privacy and integrity of data and computations in the digital world through schemes in the area of cryptography he said in this award ‘zero-knowledge proof is a powerful tool to establish trust between people without knowing each other ahead of time it allows one to convince others that their secret data has some properties without revealing the secret data itself because of this powerful functionality zero-knowledge proofs have found great applications in cutting-edge technologies to provide privacy scalability and integrity
zhangs project advances three aspects of the zero-knowledge proof schemes: theory application and systems on the theory side new practical schemes with linear running time in the size of the computation are constructed based on error-correcting codes and expander graphs on the application side the project investigates machine-learning algorithms and graph algorithms and develops efficient zero-knowledge proofs tailored for these applications on the system side the project initiates the study of memory-efficient and distributed algorithms for zero-knowledge proofs zhang will bring the efficiency and scalability of zero-knowledge proofs to the next level his results will enable new applications of privacy-preserving and verifiable data mining on digital platforms to protect users data privacy he will also develop new course materials for undergraduate and graduate cybersecurity education and for broadening the participation in computing of underrepresented groups and k-12 students there are many such powerful schemes in the literature of cryptography but they were usually first proposed for theoretical interests zhang said my research is trying to bring them to practice by developing new schemes with good efficiency and scalability this usually involves new ideas from all aspects of theory algorithms applications and systems the research will make the schemes applicable for real-world products and accessible to developers and engineers in the industry to protect the security and privacy of data and computations zhang said there is a rising awareness of the importance of data security and privacy now and governments and companies are developing new regulations to protect user data under these new regulations companies have become open to using a new generation of cryptographic schemes in real-world products beyond the traditional encryption and digital signature scheme all without compromising the privacy and integrity of the data and computations in the long-term my research will make these new powerful schemes ready for wide deployment in practices he said overseen by the faculty early career development program career awards are one of the nsfs most prestigious form of recognition and support for up-and-coming researchers who exemplify the role of teachers/scholars through outstanding research excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations zhang was pleased to receive the prestigious award to help with his research the award is a great honor and a recognition for my research he said it is exciting to see that the research area is important and the new ideas are appealing to people in the community the award provides great support for me to advance the research in these directions i have also learned a lot from the mentors collaborators and reviewers during the process of the career award which improved my understanding of the challenges and the ways to move forward in several research topics
contrary to what was once popular belief microwaves dont cause cancer its a decades-old concern that may evoke a vague memory of nostalgia: a young child standing in front of a microwave peering through the dimly-lit door only to be told to take a few steps back or they could catch an inexplicable illness or worse radiation poisoning thanks to advancements in science engineering and technology we now know that microwaves are safe effective and efficient however recent research from texas a&m university reveals that exposure to certain extremely high-powered microwave and radio frequencies may result in high stresses within the brain dr justin wilkerson assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering in collaboration with researchers at the us army research laboratory and the air force research laboratory began investigating the effects of high-powered pulsed microwaves on the human body most commonly used for rapid cooking microwaves are a type of electromagnetic radiation that fall between radio and infrared light on the electromagnetic spectrum using computational modeling the teams two-simulation approach first calculates the specific absorption rate (sar) of planar electromagnetic waves on a 3d model of a human body the sar values are then used to calculate changes in temperature throughout the head and brain those temperature changes are then used to determine how the brain tissue physically alters in response to the high-intensity microwaves
the microwave heating causes spatially varying rapid thermal expansion which then induces mechanical waves that propagate through the brain like ripples in a pond said wilkerson we found that if those waves interact in just the right way at the center of the brain the conditions are ideal to induce a traumatic brain injury published in science advances wilkersons research revealed that when applying a small temperature increase over a very short amount of time (microseconds) potentially injurious stress waves are created imagine all of the microwave energy needed to pop a bag of popcorn condensed into one-millionth of a second and then directed at the brain however theres no need to worry about every day exposure to microwaves or radiofrequency levels wilkersons study included magnitudes of power far greater than anything the average human will be exposed to although the required power densities at work here are orders of magnitude larger than most real-world exposure conditions they can be achieved with devices meant to emit high-power electromagnetic pulses in military and research applications said wilkerson wilkerson and the team used finite element simulations as part of their computational modeling the same models that have been used to predict traumatic brain injury in car crashes football impacts and even explosive blasts on the battlefield by applying it to a new energy deposition the microwave wilkerson has opened the door for more research to be conducted on the interactions between the biological body and electromagnetic fields and its applications
a two-year $400 000 grant from the us department of energys (doe) nuclear energy university program (neup) is helping a texas a&m university nuclear engineering researcher create cost-effective methods for the development of physical protection systems (pps) for nuclear microreactors microreactors are compact nuclear reactors that can produce up to 10 megawatts of thermal power and can be transported to areas with energy challenges such as remote residential areas or military locations according to the doe dr karen kirkland professor and associate department head in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m is the principal investigator of the grants project she explains that a pps integrates people procedures and equipment to protect assets or facilities against theft sabotage or other malevolent intruder attacks however the current requirements for commercial nuclear reactor ppss lead to oversized microreactor ppss an oversized pps leads to inefficiencies in both up-front capital expenses to design and build the pps and ongoing operational security costs kirklands new design methods look to address this by creating ppss that are appropriately sized while keeping a high level of security a key to the technological contribution of the research is combining consequence modeling with security design and a safety-security framework this combination would set the groundwork for future justification in reactor pps design consequence modeling is planning and preparing for possible accidents from processes or hazardous materials and their effect on people the environment and the process security design uses buffers from trenches moats and fences to security personnel access control and electronic security to protect and secure the reactor site kirkland is not doing this alone the project collaborates with researchers at the georgia institute of technology and sandia national laboratories which kirkland says is enabling the new technology for the microreactor pps design my colleague at georgia tech is an expert on dose estimations and radiological safety and is gaining exposure in the areas of security and reactor safety the sandia collaborator is a security expert kirkland said as a team we are teaching each other and promoting a collaborative effort that the three of us could not conduct individually by 2023 in the grants second year the team will evaluate the success of the new methodology kirkland says if successful this new methodology will not only provide a means for cost reductions of future builds but it will also maintain or possibly increase the security of reactors and promote the nrcs efforts to credit safety features of advanced reactors through proposed amendments to current physical security regulations
for those diagnosed with colorectal cancer surgery has been the only option that offers a solution unfortunately surgery is frequently complicated by disease recurrence at the site of the original cancer when microscopic cancer cells are left behind at the time of surgery chemotherapy is a treatment option that is often given in conjunction with surgery although it can lead to toxic side effects dr sung ii park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and researcher in the center for remote health technologies and systems at texas a&m university and his team are working to develop a low cost minimally invasive wireless device that offers precise safe treatment options for cancers the researchers will utilize photodynamic therapy (pdt) during surgery by using a photosensitizer a drug activated by light to kill the cancer cells during this process surgeons will be able to remove the bulk of the tumor then fully irradiate the tumor bed when the photosensitizer is activated by the light this combination would result in a complete treatment in a safe and effective way with no toxic side effects the biocompatible miniaturized implantable led device will enable light dosing and pdt that is tailored to the individual tumor response park said in the long term the work will result in a platform that has the potential to provide clinical-quality health monitoring capabilities for continuous use beyond the confines of traditional hospital or laboratory facilities; it will also allow for treatment options to prevent the development of additional malignancy and therefore significantly improve the quality of life for people with cancer this type of platform would also reduce the huge economic burden on oncology resources which totaled $167 billion us dollars in 2020 alone in 2022 projected global oncology spending will reach $206 billion a 2335% increase
further details about their device are published in the april issue of nature communications excluding skin cancers colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide according to the american institute for cancer research according to the american cancer society this year an estimated 149 500 adults in the united states will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer and it's expected to cause about 52 980 deaths although photodynamic therapy has been shown to be effective in many solid tumor cancers its clinical application has been limited by an incomplete understanding of the differing response of cancer and normal tissue and a lack of methods to monitor tumor response and adjust light dosage accordingly to address this gap park and his team have proposed a two-step procedure first the photosensitizer drug is administered which is preferentially taken up by the tumor cells and then the tumor is illuminated by non-thermal light at a wavelength that matches an absorption spectrum of the drug activation of the drug induces a photochemical reaction that triggers tumor cell death the intracavity device will provide a minimally invasive biocompatible platform for light detection of residual cancers and delivery to tumor cells located in any part of the body suggesting it could make an impact in the areas of breast kidney lung pancreatic prostate ovarian and rare cancers park said other contributors to the research include several well-known researchers from the electrical and computer engineering department the university of leeds and sun moon university this work was supported by grants from the interdisciplinary x-grants program part of the presidents excellence fund at texas a&m the 2018 national alliance for research on schizophrenia and depression young investigator awards from the brain and behavior research foundation and the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations engineering research center this work was also supported by a wellcome trust institutional strategic support fund fellowship a national institute for health research (nihr) research professorship and an nihr senior investigator award
a deficit in manufacturing talent is creating a workforce crisis as jobs are expected to go unfilled over the next decade employing skilled personnel in this critical industry is integral for shoring up us economic and national security with funding from the department of defenses (dod) industrial base analysis and sustainment (ibas) program office the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) secureamerica institute (sai) launched the texas workforce development ecosystem (twde) to address this alarming skills gap in 2020 tees and the ibas program partnered to identify disparities in the manufacturing workforce pipeline and implement a region-by-region approach to strengthen the industrial base in texas this first phase of twde applied targeted surveys workshops and interviews to identify skill gaps and develop a framework for change this effort revealed multiple issues: local ecosystems unable to meet industry needs deficiencies in essential skills lack of awareness that manufacturing is a lucrative career and increased competition for skilled labor in the defense industry phase two of twde is focused on addressing needs identified in phase one by bringing together industry education and government stakeholders at the state and local levels three major pursuits of the program include creating a workforce development ecosystem raising awareness for the defense industrial base and manufacturing skills and leveraging dod-funded and commercial programs to provide training opportunities twde will also facilitate a manufacturing skills playbook for replication of the program across the us which will analyze urban and rural regions and socio-economically depressed areas we hope to foster a strong and healthy defense supply chain by changing the perspective of manufacturing as a career said scott terry program director for twde this industry is full of innovative opportunities especially with the rise of smart manufacturing and new technologies its imperative we prove the merit of this industry to recruit and train our future workforce a major goal of twde is to capitalize on existing networks to launch a manufacturing awareness campaign in the k-12 educational landscape the campaign will include targeted outreach toward junior high schools high schools community colleges students and parents our initiative will consistently reach out to industry players to determine existing needs and gaps acting on this information twde will establish a presence across texas to reinforce a manufacturing program of study in the state terry said twde will also leverage partnerships within the texas a&m university system to educate equip and qualify students for dod technologist and engineering positions injecting skilled candidates into the manufacturing workforce pipeline tees remains committed to serving the nation through execution of initiatives such as these said rob gorham sai executive director we are fortunate to have a partner in ibas who understand the critical role that a strong manufacturing workforce plays in national security
monitoring nuclear activities in countries that have denied access to the international community is a tremendous challenge facing the international atomic energy agency (iaea) according to texas a&m university graduate student wei eng ang throughout the history of nuclear safeguards there have been several incidents where the iaea safeguards inspectors have been denied access to facilities for verification by countries such as north korea and iran ang worked with dr shikha prasad as part of the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) to investigate the possibility of using the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering (cevns) detector to monitor areas where inspectors are not allowed entry reactor antineutrinos have some unique characteristics that make them a great option for large-distance reactor monitoring they have high penetrating power and are sensitive to reactor power and burnup however the traditional methods used to detect antineutrinos such as inverse beta decay (ibd) reaction have a low cross-section and as a result ibd detectors are generally large and expensive i studied coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering detector response which is a mechanism that has been long predicted since 1974 but not observed until 2017 explained ang i investigated the possibility of its application in nuclear safeguards due to its numerous benefits: smaller detector size portability and lower energy threshold the cevns detector is small and can be easily deployed outside the reactor to monitor the reactor power it could also be cheaper and more portable compared to the ibd detector because of its relatively higher detection efficiency and cross-section angs models demonstrated that a cevns detector could be used to detect antineutrinos produced from an ap1000-type fission reactor from a distance of 25 meters he also carried out nonproliferation analyses for diversion scenarios to evaluate the possibility of employing antineutrino detection as a safeguards tool but he concluded that more work needed to be done to make such detection reliable ang successfully defended his dissertation and will graduate with a phd in nuclear engineering from texas a&m university in may he also earned a graduate certificate in nuclear security from nsspi an opportunity he said directly supports his work as a science officer and regulator the graduate certificate in the nuclear security program from nsspi has provided me with insight into the current nuclear security and safeguards issues i gained a lot of knowledge and understanding regarding the nuclear policy as well as technical details regarding nuclear safety and security this knowledge is extremely helpful to me as a regulator especially during nuclear safety and security policymaking and implementation at both national and international levels