houck2040/tees huggingface dataset:
the impede® embolization plug originally designed by researchers in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has won a 2019 r&d 100 award from r&d world magazine the device is owned by shape memory medical inc a california-based company co-founded by dr duncan maitland at texas a&m r&d 100 awards are high-profile acknowledgements of the potential or existing impact of a new product or service when maitland worked at lawrence livermore national laboratory (llnl) he said r&d 100 awards were one of the highest external recognitions that a team could receive for the impact of their research my first reaction is tied to this history and my joy for the team members from llnl for receiving this award my second reaction is that the team that has worked on this project from concept to commercial sales has been hundreds of people maitland said this has been a marathon effort by a lot of people i am also very happy for the people at llnl texas a&m university shape memory medical inc and other many other institutions that have made this happen i am fortunate to have worked with so many bright and dedicated people texas a&m contributors that are also acknowledged as part of the impede development team include dr fred clubb dr balakrishna haridas dr staci jessen and dr brandis keller clubb clinical professor of veterinary medicine at texas a&m and joint faculty member in the department of biomedical engineering works in the cvpath lab on campus to provide quality data to garner answers to medical device safety questions we are honored and proud to be a part of the impede development team at texas a&m and excited to see this device receive recognition clubb said the impede family of peripheral vascular embolization products all include shape memory polymer (smp) the devices are designed to provide doctors with a more effective and less risky method for treating aneurysms – blood-filled balloon-like bulges in the walls of a blood vessel that can rupture and cause vascular damage that is debilitating or even fatal the device quickly clots blood to block it from reaching aneurysms tumors or other issues smp is designed to transition between two shapes based on its environment it can be crimped for delivery through a catheter and it self-expands when exposed to blood and body temperature to date more than 250 patients have been successfully treated worldwide with impede and the team expects to have thousands treated in the next year or so looking to the future maitland said there are registered human studies to use impede to better treat patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms and pulmonary arteriovenous malformations and he hopes to expand its use even further going forward we are trying to develop materials and devices to apply this technology to improved treatment of cancer but peer-reviewed research funding is a slow and tricky process maitland said we are also working on prototypes of pediatric devices we will continue to submit grants and apply for funding awards will be presented at the r&d 100 awards banquet on dec 5 in san francisco california
solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant renewable energy source available and the us has some of the richest solar resources in the world to support the progression of solar power the us department of energy (doe) announced it would provide $128 million in funding to advance solar technologies through the office of energy efficiency and renewable energys solar energy technologies office the doe will fund innovative research projects that will lower solar electricity costs while working to boost solar manufacturing reduce red tape and make solar systems more resilient to cyberattacks among the 75 teams to receive an award is a team led by texas a&m engineering experiment station researchers
the mary kay oconnor process safety center (mkopsc) has appointed dr stewart behie to serve as interim director behie has over 40 years of technical experience in risk assessment and management process hazards analysis safety engineering and the process of safety culture maturation he has worked closely with the mkopsc as an industry consortium member and also on the industry steering committee and he has served on the risk communication subcommittee representing the occidental oil and gas corporation as well we are very pleased to have dr behie join us said dr james holste chemical engineering professor emeritus and former mkopsc interim director he is a well-known and respected practitioner and teacher of process safety his industry experience and process safety expertise will open new avenues and opportunities for the mkopsc to make safety second nature the mkopsc was established in 1995 in memory of mary kay oconnor an operations superintendent killed in an explosion on oct 23 1989 at the phillips petroleum complex in pasadena texas in 1997 dr sam mannan because of his reputation as a world-renowned expert in process safety was appointed director of the center and served until his passing on sept 11 2018 i look forward to my new leadership role within the mkopsc and to be able to continue the legacy of dr mannan a guru of process safety worldwide said behie learning to look through the eyes of risk is paramount to good process safety practices when working with operators or engineers i want them to see their roles and practices through a risk paradigm im excited to incorporate this vision in my work at the texas a&m engineering experiment station the mkopsc mission is to promote safety as second nature in industry around the world with goals to prevent future incidents in addition the center develops safer processes equipment procedures and management strategies to minimize losses within the processing industry other functions of the center include serving all stakeholders providing a common forum and developing programs and activities that will forever change the paradigm of process safety
shell has donated $6 million to the texas a&m engineering program the gift will be divided among the texas a&m engineering experiment stations mary kay oconnor process safety center the shell engineering foundations laboratory and the shell transport phenomena laboratory we are grateful for shells generosity and support of our engineering program at texas a&m said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering shells investment in education is improving lives and empowering students to fulfill their dreams of becoming aggie engineers this was a great opportunity for shell to embed safety principles such as life-saving rules and process safety fundamentals into students minds shells deep value for people our environment and our energy future really align with texas a&ms college of engineering and the mary kay oconnor program my belief moving forward is that we will continue to partner to make our energy future better said lori fremin general manager for surface engineering at shell the college of engineering will allocate funding for undergraduate research opportunities graduate fellowships and future development of process safety programs the mary kay oconnor process safety center develops safer processes equipment procedures and management strategies to minimize losses within the processing industry researchers conduct studies pertaining to general issues of process safety as well as specific interests of the centers consortium members the rest of the gift will go to name two important student laboratories within the zachry engineering education complex: the engineering foundations laboratory and the transport phenomena laboratory the engineering foundations laboratory is the largest student-serving experiential lab in the college of engineering it is a 35 000-square-foot experiential learning environment where the fundamental concepts of physics and engineering are taught every engineering student takes two courses in the engineering foundations laboratory the transport phenomena laboratory is a 2 000-square-foot laboratory designed to support the teaching of mass transport thermal transport and thermal property measurement techniques across multiple disciplines in engineering shell is an international energy company with around 84 000 employees in more than 70 countries in the united states shell is a leading oil and natural gas producer a recognized pioneer in deep-water exploration and production technology for the gulf of mexico and one of americas leading manufacturers and marketers of natural gas petrochemicals and a range of oil products including fuels and lubricants for home transport and industrial use
whether the body of a commercial aircraft or the suspension beams of san franciscos golden gate bridge materials used for carrying heavy loads are engineered for strength and durability but under unrelenting physical stress structures that may appear damage-free can crack suddenly shrouding the reasons for their failure in mystery unlike pure metals it has long been known that load-bearing materials like steel brass and alloys of aluminum or magnesium have different mechanical properties in different directions now texas a&m university researchers have found that under extreme tension this asymmetry causes load-bearing materials to deteriorate internally and over time develop visible cracks when alloys get damaged its usually very destructive since their ability to handle any kind of stress is sharply reduced said dr amine benzerga professor in aerospace engineering and the director of the center for intelligent materials and structures at texas a&m our findings on the main mechanism driving failure might help make better decisions about the lifetime of alloys that are currently in use which in turn can save a hefty amount of dollars in repairs a description of their research appeared in the journal scientific reports material failure depends on a number of factors including the precise arrangement of the atoms and molecules that make it up consequently unlike a slab of glass that shatters upon breaking metals in particular alloys break counterintuitively that is when a piece of alloy is pulled apart cracks are not always at 90-degree angles to the direction of the pull
the prevalent view of the cause of this type of crack known technically as shear fracture has been porosity softening according to this theory damaging stress creates empty spaces or voids within the metal alloy resembling holes in cheese under constant tension these voids grow and join at which point cracks form and the metal fails however the mechanisms that cause the voids to grow have remained murky also benzerga and his colleagues noticed that most studies investigating the cause of shear fracture were based on experiments in which tension was applied to rectangular-shaped alloys this shape increases the chances of shear fracture substantially said benzerga giving the impression that porosity softening is the main underlying cause for failure precluding other potential causes for their experiments benzerga and his team instead turned to cylindrical-shaped alloys and investigated if the tendency for shear fracture changed with the new shape they found their specimens did not always break in shear fractures the fact that the shape of our specimens was influencing how often we saw shear fractures told us that something else is driving shear failure and that porosity softening was not the whole story said benzerga to examine the cause of shear fractures benzerga and his team built a more sophisticated simulation model that considered porosity softening and other potential causes including plastic anisotropy the property by which a pull or load on a material from one direction causes damage that is different from that in another their simulations predicted that plastic anisotropy and not porosity softening triggered and propelled shear fractures our simulations were telling us something very different from the accepted theory for the cause of shear fractures said benzerga when we completely turned off the porosity softening in our simulations and just kept the plastic anisotropy we still got shear fractures suggesting that plastic anisotropy drives shear failure the researchers speculate that plastic anisotropy causes internal damage to the material leading to voids as damage continues these voids become larger naturally then coalesce over time and cause failure benzerga noted that in the near future their findings could help design materials that can resist shear failures better there are several new load-bearing materials whose mechanical properties are not fully known he said our model now provides a framework to predict what will happen to these materials if heavy physical stress is applied to them other contributors to the research include nithin thomas and joshua s harrington from the texas a&m department of aerospace engineering this research was funded by the national science foundation and by the lawrence livermore national laboratory under master task agreements
leading a double life as both solids and liquids liquid crystals occupy center stage for creating smaller faster and more efficient technologies even at the level of single particles liquid crystals can bend light and react to external forces like electric fields or physical pushes and pulls and so a tiny quantity of liquid crystals is usually enough to achieve high performance in many applications ranging from monitor screens to solar panels but in order to fully tap into a liquid crystals wondrous properties its constituent particles must be systematically assembled in a new study texas a&m university researchers have discovered that applying a small difference in temperature to a watered-down mixture of a compound called zirconium phosphate initiates its liquid crystallization as zirconium phosphate particles move toward warmer temperatures they start aligning themselves with each other and eventually turn into pure liquid crystals the researchers said ours is the first proof-of-concept study to show that temperature gradient is an effective yet simple tool to assemble high-quality liquid crystals said dr zhengdong cheng professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering also our results indicate that we can move liquid crystals by just varying temperature a property that can potentially be used to transport liquid crystal particles from one place to another thus paving the way for applications beyond those that are commonly associated with liquid crystals today the researchers reported their findings in the october issue of the journal acs nano liquid crystals represent a state of matter that lie somewhere between solids and liquids like molecules in solids that form crystals those in liquid crystals are arranged in a semi-systematic fashion like cars in a partly-full parking lot but liquid crystals are also runny and can assume any shape like liquids furthermore in their liquid crystal avatar materials often show exotic properties for example they split up light beams or change their molecular alignments in response to electric fields but whether or not a material can assume a liquid crystal state depends on the overall shape of their constituent particles substances made up of spherical particles do not form liquid crystals on the other hand materials consisting of particles that are elongated like rods or flat like discs do form liquid crystals cheng and his team were particularly interested in zirconium phosphate because its disc-like particles have the ability to self-assemble into larger flat 2d structures in their liquid crystalline state
many particles found in nature like red blood cells nucleosomes and clay particles are disc shaped and under the right circumstances they can self-assemble into liquid crystals said cheng so we used zirconium phosphate as a proxy to investigate if there is a way to experimentally control the liquid crystallization of these particles zirconium phosphate has been shown to assemble into liquid crystals on its own if large enough quantities are added to water but the resulting liquid crystals often have defects and are unstable so cheng and his team came up with an alternative approach cheng had shown previously that applying a temperature difference could make spherical particles assemble into clumps of crystals using the same principle his team investigated if varying temperatures could be used to assemble zirconium phosphate into liquid crystals for their experiments the texas a&m team made a mixture of zirconium phosphate and water and filled it into thin two-inch-long tubes making sure that the quantity of zirconium phosphate was small enough to not trigger automatic liquid crystallization next they applied heat in such a way that the temperature difference between either ends of the tube was around 10 degrees within an hour cheng and his team found that the zirconium phosphate particles in the cooler end of the tube began to creep toward the warmer end triggering liquid crystallization from the tubes warmer end
just like water in a boiling pot circulates from the bottom where it is hot to the top of the container where its cold water in our tubes was also circulating from warmer to cooler temperatures said dali huang graduate student in the texas a&m college of engineering and a primary author of the study accordingly the zirconium phosphate particles also moved in the direction of the water flow and arranged themselves into liquid crystals the researchers speculated that the push from the flowing water helps zirconium phosphate particles to position themselves systematically until they form liquid crystals also they found that the liquid crystals created with temperature gradients were less defective than those formed by other methods cheng noted that their findings open new doors for use in a variety of contexts by virtue of their shape disc-shaped particles have a larger surface area compared to their volume said cheng if we think of the next generation of biomedical devices for example we can potentially take advantage of this geometry to load medicinal particles on their flat surfaces and then vary temperature to transport them to target a specific part of the body other contributors to the research include dr abhijeet shinde dali huang mariela saldivar hongfei xu dr minxiang zeng ugochukwu okeibunor dr ling wang carlos mejia sasha george and dr lecheng zhang from the texas a&m department of chemical engineering; and dr padetha tin from the nasa glenn research center ohio this work was supported by nasa
in the perennial clash between man and microbe ultraviolet light has emerged as one of mans powerful tools against many pathogens although ultraviolet light can wipe out several germs the exact mechanisms that orchestrate the radiations damaging action have long been elusive in the september issue of pnas texas a&m university researchers have reported that ultraviolet radiation creates holes in the microbes outer protective sheath by dislodging tryptophan a molecule that is an important component of the bacterias outer covering the researchers said that these holes provide gateways for ultraviolet radiation to go into the bacteria and disrupt its dna which then stops the microbes from replicating our study provides the science behind the germicidal action of ultraviolet light said dr peter rentzepis tees eminent professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and a member of the national academy of sciences wed like to use this knowledge to develop better ways to monitor bacteria inactivation in various settings including the food industry and health care ultraviolet light is a highly energetic beam of radiation that has been harnessed for a variety of applications ranging from food contamination prevention to infection control although ultraviolet radiation has been used for over five decades to kill bacteria the means by which it enters microorganisms and then accesses their genetic material has not been clear to reach the interior of the bacterium where the dna-containing nucleus is located ultraviolet radiation must pass through an outer layer surrounding the microbe called the cell membrane attached to this membrane are tryptophan molecules although tryptophan is popularly known for its sleep-promoting effects in humans in bacteria tryptophan anchors proteins made within the microbes onto the cell membrane consequently the bacterial outer covering is studded with tryptophan molecules
jain and her colleagues found that after taking social factors into account the most promising compressor system design was not the one that was already in the existing plant but the one that the researchers had created jain noted that their observations indicate the feasibility of using their algorithm to evaluate new process design ideas that exist in theory but havent been put to the test in an existing plant there is often a hesitation in the energy industry to invest in a new process design if it hasnt been evaluated yet said jain with our algorithm we now have the ability to brainstorm ideas for new process designs and test them virtually without really needing them to be physically set up and running moreover we can feed the algorithm with numbers corresponding to different social factors pertaining to chemical plants in the process we might stumble upon a new better design that is safer for workers and kinder to the environment other contributors to the research included kariana mareno-sader tenorio from the department of chemical engineering university of cartagena colombia; luis carlos ballestas from ecopetrol sa columbia; and dr m sam mannan from the chemical engineering department and executive director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center at texas a&m this work was supported by funds from the mary kay oconnor process safety center
q: what is it like being on the faculty at texas a&m a: my journey has come full circle unlike when i was a student i now see the organization from a different vantage point i hope to bring all my experience in leadership and research to manage the safety engineering academic program i also now collaborate with several senior professors from other departments to enhance my research q: what career advice do you give your students a: i encourage all my students to have an open mind about their career pursuits i chose to be in academia because i really enjoy teaching and research but the wonderful aspect about being at the mary kay o'connor process safety center is that you also get to work on industry-related projects so i highly recommend that my students do at least one internship in industry before they make up their minds about the direction of their careers but if they enjoy research more and want to stay in academia they have my full support as well
according to ancient lore genghis khan instructed his horsemen to wear silk vests underneath their armor to better protect themselves against an onslaught of arrows during battle since the time of khan body armor has significantly evolved silk has given way to ultra-hard materials that act like impenetrable walls against most ammunition however even this armor can fail particularly if it is hit by high-speed ammunition or other fast-moving objectsresearchers from texas a&m university the army research laboratory rutgers university and johns hopkins university have formulated a new recipe that can prevent weaknesses in modern-day armor by adding a tiny amount of the element silicon to boron carbide a material commonly used for making body armor they discovered that bullet-resistant gear could be made substantially more resilient to high-speed impactsfor the past 12 years researchers have been looking for ways to reduce the damage caused by the impact of high-speed bullets on armor made with boron carbide said dr kelvin xie assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering our work finally addresses this unmet need and is a step forward in designing superior body armor that will safeguard against even more powerful firearms during combatthis study was published in the october issue of the journal science advancesboron carbide dubbed black diamond is a man-made material which ranks second below another synthetic material called cubic boron nitride for hardness unlike cubic boron nitride however boron carbide is easier to produce on a large scale also boron carbide is harder and lighter than other armor materials like silicon carbide making it an ideal choice for protective gear particularly ballistic vestsdespite boron carbides many desirable qualities its main shortfall is that it can damage very quickly upon high-velocity impactboron carbide is really good at stopping bullets traveling below 900 meters per second and so it can block bullets from most handguns quite effectively said xie but above this critical speed boron carbide suddenly loses its ballistic performance and is not as effective
scientists know high-speed jolts cause boron carbide to have phase transformations a phenomenon where a material changes its internal structure such that it is in two or more physical states like liquid and solid at the same time the bullets impact thus converts boron carbide from a crystalline state where atoms are systematically ordered to a glass-like state where atoms are haphazardly arranged this glass-like state weakens the materials integrity at the site of contact between the bullet and boron carbidewhen boron carbide undergoes phase transformation the glassy phase creates a highway for cracks to propagate said xie so any local damage caused by the impact of a bullet easily travels throughout the material and causes progressively more damageprevious work using computer simulations predicted that adding a small quantity of another element such as silicon had the potential to make boron carbide less brittle xie and his group investigated if adding a tiny quantity of silicon also reduced phase transformationto simulate the initial impact of a high-speed bullet the researchers made well-controlled dents on boron carbide samples with a diamond tip whose width is smaller than a human hair then under a high-powered electron microscope they looked at the microscopic damage that was formed from the blowsxie and his collaborators found that even with tiny quantities of silicon the extent of phase transformation went down by 30% noticeably reducing the damage from the indentationalthough silicon serves well to enhance boron carbides properties xie explained that more experiments need to be done to know if other elements like lithium and aluminum could also improve boron carbides performancein the near future xie predicts these stronger cousins of pure boron carbide will find other nonmilitary applications one such use is in nuclear shields he said using a touch of silicon in boron carbide changes the spacing between atoms and the empty spaces created might be good sites to absorb harmful radiation from nuclear reactorsjust as in cooking where a small sprinkle of spices can greatly boost flavor by using a small amount of silicon we can dramatically improve the properties of boron carbide and consequently find novel applications for these ultrahard materials xie said other contributors to the research include dr sisi xiang yvonne dieudonne dr george m pharr and digvijay yadav from the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m; dr kevin j hemker and dr luoning ma from johns hopkins department of mechanical engineering; bruce yang dr chawon hwang and dr richard a haber from the rutgers university department of materials science and engineering; dr jing lu from nanomegas usa; and dr jerry c lasalvia from the us army research laboratorythis study was partly sponsored by the defense advanced research projects agency additional support was received from xies start-up grant from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees)
dr xia "ben" hu assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering and a lynn ‘84 and bill crane 83 faculty fellow has recently been given a national science foundation (nsf) and amazon joint award under their fairness in artificial intelligence program with this research funding hu will now take deep dives into investigating the causes behind biases in machine learning algorithms and ways to remedy them algorithms based on machine learning have seamlessly permeated into our everyday lives particularly to help us with decision making for example many businesses use artificial intelligence-powered applications to give people employment-related suggestions or to provide product recommendations however overwhelming research now shows that these algorithms are inadvertently discriminatory the bias in machine learning algorithms is quite ubiquitous and people have begun to notice it said hu take for instance employment-oriented services that use machine learning to match users with job opportunities for reasons that are currently not completely known these algorithms recommend stem jobs only to male users this bias he said can hurt both employers who hope to hire the best candidate regardless of their gender and women seeking stem jobs moreover machine learning algorithms specifically those based on a specialized form of artificial intelligence called deep learning are often considered impenetrable black boxes making the task of fixing them extremely hard compounding the problem is that the bias could also be caused by a multitude of other factors including faulty data for training the machine learning algorithm hu noted that his upcoming research will for the first time detect understand and correct the unfairness in deep learning algorithms in a quantitative way he said that once the bias is addressed the newer deep learning algorithms will be more sensitive to features that are most relevant to the decision-making task if we again think of the deep learning algorithms in the context of employment-oriented services we want to develop better algorithms that are insensitive to features such as gender and race and more sensitive to the candidates past experiences or what their expertise is said hu our goal is to reduce the bias in deep learning algorithms so that they are much more valuable to both the user and the service provider the nsf-amazon joint award under their fairness in artificial intelligence program is a highly competitive grant funding just six to nine applicants each year funding size varies between $750 000 up to a maximum of $1 250 000 for periods of up to three years to receive the award grant applications must be interdisciplinary projects that include contributions from various fields including computer science statistics mathematics and information science hu shares the award with dr james caverlee from the department of computer science and engineering dr na zou from the department of industrial and systems engineering and dr chaitanya lakkimsetti from the department of sociology at texas a&m university
because of their unique ability to be pulled twisted and conform to 3d surfaces stretchable electronics have a variety of applications that include wearable health monitors cyber skin for robotic devices and flexible solar cells however even with these superpowers stretchable electronics can tear but not in ways that one would normally think in a recent paper published in pnas dr matt pharr assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has shown that a tiny rip in some stretchable materials spreads at right angles to the original tear quite unlike a tear on paper that deepens when pulled his findings on the mechanics of tears in elastic materials may help develop more tear-resistant materials in the future
pharr first suspected that stretchable materials have a unique tear pattern when he was playing with a soft elastic material called elastomers when he pulled on a crack in the material he noticed that the tear became bigger in the direction of the pull this observation led him to further investigate the sideways cracking of these materials more systematically in his laboratory he found that when elastomers are relaxed their structural properties are the same in all directions but when pulled these materials undergo microscopic structural changes that make them have different properties in different directions and so the tear does not get deeper; instead it changes direction and expands alongside the rest of the elastomer this is scientifically intriguing said pharr its not expected and seeing something that i dont expect always sparks curiosity
pharr aims to use his knowledge about the structural properties of elastomers to engineer new elastic materials that show sideways cracking by investigating how to reverse engineer microstructures that lead to sideways cracking researchers can harness the benefits associated with it and develop application methods for materials that do not normally exhibit such fractures this will ensure stretchable electronics are more tear resistance and have greater stretchability
by incorporating the architecture of city drainage systems and readings from flood gauges into a comprehensive statistical framework researchers at texas a&m university can now accurately predict the evolution of floods in extreme situations like hurricanes with their new approach the researchers said their algorithm could forecast the flow of flood water in almost real-time which can then lead to timelier emergency response and planning not knowing where flood water will flow next is particularly detrimental for first responders who need to gauge the level of flooding for their rescue operations said dr ali mostafavi assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering our new algorithm considers the underground drainage channels to provide an accurate representation of how floods propagate this tool we think can vastly help disaster management because first responders will be able to see which way flood water will flow in real time a description of the researchers algorithm can be found in the december issue of the journal computer-aided civil and infrastructure engineering hurricanes are notorious for wreaking havoc on shorelines toppling trees tearing down power lines and above all causing severe floods conventionally scientists have used physics-based models to predict where water might collect overflow and cause flooding in essence these models capture how physical features of the earths surface and urban landscapes affect the flow of water over the ground while robust at predicting when and where floods will happen under most rainfall conditions mostafavi said these traditional models do not perform as well at predicting floods during incidents of torrential rainfall like hurricane harvey physics-based models offer one perspective on how floods can spread which is extremely useful but the picture they provide is somewhat incomplete he said we wanted to use existing data on how past floods have spread through the drainage channels to develop a model that would be able to predict within a certain level of preciseness how future floods will spread drainage channels are an elaborate network of intertwined channels that meet together at junctions called nodes thus flooding in one channel can directly or indirectly affect other channels and cause floods to spread much like a domino effect
to predict which way flood water will flow along drainage channels and cause an inundation mostafavi and his team developed a probability-based model that was fed as one of its inputs the water-level readings on flood gauges these readings were for different time points during two major flooding events in texas hurricane harvey in 2017 and houstons memorial day flood in 2015 once their algorithm was trained on water flow patterns through the drainage network for these heavy rainfall events the researchers tested if their model worked by checking if it could predict the flood patterns that had been observed during houstons tax day flood in 2016 they found that their model achieved an accuracy of 85% in predicting how the flood propagated through the citys drainage system during the tax day flood although the model was validated using a past flood event mostafavi said that the models success suggests that it will also be able to predict how new floods will propagate through the citys drainage networks this insight could help emergency responders take preemptive steps towards evacuations he said noting the caveats of their model mostafavi said that the performance of their algorithm could be compromised if the sensors on flood gauges fail however complementing the predictions coming from physics-based models with those from their teams new algorithm can once again restore the accuracy of flood prediction traditional models and our data-driven models can be used to complement each other to give a more precise picture of where flood water will go next said mostafavi hurricanes of the magnitude of harvey or katrina are generally considered a one-in-a-thousand-year event but they may not be as rare if we consider the changes in global weather patterns because of climate change but we now have more robust tools to weather the storm other contributors to the research include dr shangjia dong and dr hamed farahmand from the texas a&m zachry department of civil and environmental engineering this research is funded by national science foundations rapid project and crisp 20 type 2 project
texas a&m university-san antonio will advance cyber research through a newly established cyber engineering technology/cyber security research center with a $1 million grant from the texas a&m university system chancellors research initiative (cri) the center will be housed in the department of computing and cyber security within the college of business some of the major research areas to be investigated at the center include security and privacy in the internet of things and cloud computing secure vehicle-to-vehicle communications and cyber-physical systems the grant will also be used to enhance research collaborations with local and regional research institutions chancellor john sharp created the chancellors research initiative in 2013 for texas a&m university and prairie view a&m university to hire highly qualified professors who would impact the academic and research missions of those schools two years later he expanded it to the rest of the a&m system it is through research that the texas a&m system can tackle global problems said sharp i am proud that a&m-san antonio will be involved in the critical field of cybersecurity this grant takes a&m-san antonio to the next level of research said dr cynthia teniente-matson president of a&m-san antonio we anticipate the a&m university system will see a great return on its investment in cybersecurity here in san antonio as well as contribute to advancing research related to the advancing science of the effectiveness for the internet of things the grant will be shared with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) which will receive about a third of the money the texas a&m system is dedicated to protecting against cyberattacks of government businesses and individuals said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering and national laboratories and tees director tees and texas a&m have built strong academic and research programs in cybersecurity and this new grant will allow us to leverage our activities with those at a&m-san antonio for increased impact the cyber engineering technology/cyber security research center will develop foundational research infrastructure with cutting-edge technology and equipment to facilitate research in various areas and provide campus-wide infrastructure and resources for faculty and student research said dr akhtar lodgher chair of the department of computing and cyber security a portion of the grant will support existing degree programs at a&m-san antonio such as cyber engineering technology as well as future graduate programs dr smriti bhatt and dr loai tawalbeh under the supervision of dr lodgher submitted the winning proposal
mental health issues are becoming more prevalent on college campuses across the country and researchers at texas a&m university are working to develop evidence-based services that will help manage students mental health while mental health counseling is available on most college campuses the stigma around mental health care can keep students away from the help they needtools to help combat this stigma are readily seen on college campuses today – smart devices most college students have either a smartphone tablet or smartwatch these devices allow students constant access to one another and the world around them and can provide a reliable platform to deliver mental health servicesa team of researchers led by dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering is developing a wearable continuous monitoring tool
the tool utilizes advanced machine learning and a wide range of sensors provided on commercial off-the-shelf smartwatches to detect signs and symptoms of high anxiety and direct the smartwatch wearer to resources the wearable device would be triggered by negative indicators such as anxiety patterns of heart rate and self-reports by the smartwatch wearer and would prompt the wearer to engage in therapeutic activities the pilot program is called mental health evaluation and lookout or mhelpresources available through mhelp include therapeutic activities like mobile self-assessments educational content and self-management tools such as biofeedback and mindfulness exercises these services are available through a mobile platform the monitoring tool will also integrate with in-person and virtual counseling sessions which will help mental health providers guide their patients treatment plans more effectivelythis pilot program hopes to bring mental health care to students as they experience anxiety or depression and provide on-demand or proactive access to virtual and in-person counseling by allowing students to manage their mental health through a wearable device the researchers feel that some of the stigma associated with mental health treatment can be overcome
mental health is affecting students academic success and their overall quality of life sasangohar said mental illness can also affect a students motivation concentration and social interactions which are all crucial factors for a student to be successful in college and lifethis program is the first of its kind and could be used as a model for integrating mobile-enabled technologies into mental health care in other communitiessasangohar will collaborate with student counseling services the office of the dean of faculties the division of student affairs as well as faculty in the bush school of government and public service college of education and human development school of public health and college of engineeringthis project is funded by the x-grants program at texas a&m through the office of the president funding will be used to implement the pilot program at texas a&m
dr jaime grunlan and his team are helping lead the effort to pursue safer more effective ways to protect flammable objects through the development of flame-retardant surface treatments grunlan the linda & ralph schmidt 68 professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is an international leader in the field of flame-retardant surface treatments and recently published a review in nature reviews materials describing the state of the art in this important field of research the team's goal alongside their peers is to produce surface treatments that serve to be more effective in their fire protection and less damaging to the environment "many current flame-retardant treatments are ineffective or not effective enough and contain toxic chemistries " grunlan said "we and others around the world are seeking to make flame-retardant treatments safer and much more effective at stopping fire" current research by grunlan's team aims specifically to protect telephone and transmission line poles to prevent forest fires treat textiles for military use and reduce the flammability of a variety of foams and fabrics used in vehicles including planes trains and cars while much progress has been made over the last decade there is still much work to be done "as flame-retardant regulations are changing around the world and new fire threats are constantly presenting themselves this review of flame-retardant surface treatments is especially timely " grunlan said through the use of these surface treatments researchers hope to make commonly used flammable materials including polyurethane foam and polyester fabric anti-flammable or self-extinguishing in some cases the treatments can even be used to reduce smoke production "the field of flame-retardant treatments is seeking to prevent loss of life and property damage by imparting self-extinguishing and anti-flammable behavior to various materials " grunlan said "plastics are inherently flammable and are often the cause of spreading fire more rapidly in buildings and transportation appropriate treatments make it much more difficult for materials to ignite and spread the fire" while surface treatments like those developed by grunlan's team have their benefits over the more commonly used method of mixing in the fire-retardant agent to the materials of interest there are drawbacks that researchers are seeking to address "durability of these treatments to washing and environmental damage is one key issue along with the need for more effective and environmentally friendly chemistries " grunlan said "my research group is working to address both of these challenges and we are at the forefront of the field in this regard" the nature reviews materials journal publishes reviews by invitation only and seeks out the leaders in a given topic nature reviews materials has quickly established itself as the second-highest impact factor journal in the world among any field of research
there is a layer that separates the sky and sea its tiny – only one millimeter at its thickest – and yet this sea-surface microlayer plays a major role in weather prediction and the relationship between the air and oceanwhile the sea-surface layer has been known about for decades the dynamics and greater implications of it are largely unknown in order to remedy this dr aarthi sekaran and dr noushin amini two research assistant professors in the department of ocean engineering at the texas a&m university at galveston campus are taking a deeper look into the flow instabilities of this microlayer their research will provide a better understanding of how changes in the sea-surface microlayer affect weather patterns such as wind speed and temperature variationthe science that is hidden in this microlayer is both fascinating and challenging since we see large variations of properties like temperature salinity and organic matter composition said sekaran essentially a lot happening over a small thickness which is an exciting fluid dynamical setupas the incidence of extreme weather conditions increases sekaran explained that it becomes more essential to understand the sea-surface microlayer which plays a pivotal role in predicting weather and climate changes the question then becomes how global conditions are affected by shifts found in the microlayermy research aims at using state-of-the-art computer simulations to unearth the role of flow instabilities coherent structure dynamics and other related processes on the development of the sea-surface microlayer said sekaran