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since 2015 the data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) training program at texas a&m university has been developing interdisciplinary leaders across the college of science and college of engineering d3em is led by dr raymundo arroyave presidential impact fellow and professor in the department of materials science and engineering one of the most rewarding aspects of the program is the fact that we have such a diverse group of students with all kinds of life experiences said arroyave funded by the national science foundation the program focuses on empowering graduate students with the skills needed to create and apply data-driven approaches to the development design and application of advanced materials and machine learning for energy-related technologies through both fellowship research and networking opportunities it bolsters the students of today as they work toward a more sustainable tomorrow levi mcclenny a doctoral candidate in the department of electrical and computer engineering who holds a d3em fellowship and was recently appointed student regent has utilized the program to gain insight as to what happens at the microstructure level in materials in doing so he is working under the mentorship of dr ulisses braga-neto associate professor in the electrical and computer engineering department to investigate how to develop and manufacture better materials designed to accomplish specific tasks for the future the d3em group has been using data to learn a substantial amount about materials compositions and processing methods and has derived methods that are currently being fielded by entities such as nasa to create materials with specific properties that are useful for very specific applications said mcclenny the d3em research is a test bed for proof of concept that we can learn real practical and pragmatic methods of utilizing materials data to our advantage in addition to creating he is also looking into how materials break down in a collaborative project between the d3em and the army research lab mcclenny is investigating how machine learning can be applied to the fracturing process of materials in order to predict when breakage or deterioration will occur in military vehicles and ultimately prevent it from happening in the first place for example a military aircraft is comprised of a myriad of components – each in different stages of wear and tear by building smart vehicles that can begin to detect their own deterioration pilots and engineers will be able to better determine the overall state of their vehicle which will help with maintenance and operational requirements through his experience with d3em mcclenny has been given the opportunity to pursue his research passions while also honing his professional and technical skills to be able to effectively communicate within collaborate and lead an interdisciplinary team now and into his future career better material implies better structures and probably cheaper to manufacture as well said mcclenny as we learn more about how to manufacture materials to the exact specifications we desire we can remove the design constraints that exist with some materials used in modern structures machines and medicine doing so would allow us to manufacture the exact material required for a task and can have significant implications in improving the designs of the future and optimizing the designs of the past levi is a perfect example of the students we aspire to train as he not only brings his expertise in computer science and machine learning into a materials science program but his military perspective brings a sense of purpose to some of the problems we study as part of the program said arroyave harnessing his diverse experiences and dedication to a better future mcclenny is now taking steps toward his new appointment as student regent needless to say i was ecstatic (to learn about the appointment) this is an opportunity i have had my eyes on for years and its incredibly exciting to see years of work pay off said mcclenny
on june 25 2019 dr sean mcdeavitt director of the nuclear engineering and science center hosted the first experimenters integration meeting at texas a&m university this meeting was attended by approximately 85 contributors from across five different department of energy (doe) laboratories 20 universities and seven industry partners the focus of the meeting was information sharing in order to build stronger collaborations across the suite of the versatile test reactor (vtr) experiment program for the last 23 years the us has not had a fast reactor-based neutron source such a neutron source is the cornerstone of the countrys ability to accelerate the development and testing of advanced materials and fuels by testing them in high fast-neutron fields with representative environments the reason this whole effort is important is because the reactor itself is intentionally traditional in design and is actually fairly simple however the experiments that are conducted in the reactor can be quite complex and can influence the design of the reactor and the reactor facility said john bumgardner resumption of transient testing director at the idaho national laboratory (inl) bumgardner went on to explain that while this reactor is a sodium fast reactor he can actually use it to do fuels testing qualification for many other reactor types this testing capability is essential for the us to modernize its nuclear energy infrastructure for developing transformational nuclear energy technologies a modern domestic test reactor capability is needed for the advanced reactor community in the us to achieve its goals regarding cost reduction long-lived structures and cladding materials and fuels that can withstand extreme environments i want people to understand how crucial this project really is to the advancement of nuclear in general said kevin weaver vtr experiment manager and technical lead at inl there are things that we will learn out of it that were not even thinking of right now weaver likened their research and various collaborations to the faith people place in nasa missions theres so much work and preparation that goes into it and there is no way to know what were going to get out of it but if you think forwardeven just a few years aheadthis work could drastically change the landscape thats a big deal this experimenters integration meeting aimed to provide an overall framework of the whole project to the people on the experiment team the meeting was also an opportunity to hear from research teams in order to understand what their progress has been and what their needs are in order to move forward
bridges make it possible to get to places faster and more conveniently but in the face of an earthquake these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage dr petros sideris an assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university is leading a collaborative research effort funded by the national science foundation (nsf) to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (hsr) columns which provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake resistant conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible structural damage in conventional columns usually caused by a natural disaster result in cracking damage that would force a bridge to close until repairs are completed on the other hand bridges with hsr columns are able to withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require only minor repairs likely without bridge closures such infrastructure not only increases community quality of life but can also save thousands in taxpayer dollars there are multiple advantages to the public sideris said by preventing bridge damage we can maintain access to the affected areas immediately after the event for response teams to be easily deployed this accessibility will further help the affected communities to recover faster also by mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities
bridges with hsr columns are more resilient than traditional columns because they have more deformability meaning they can more easily alter their shape traditional columns are cast as one piece which means that as the earth shakes and bends these structures crack like a stick bent at both ends hsr columns are built as a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking this allows the columns to shift and rock without damage while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position our research has shown that hybrid sliding-rocking columns can be very damage resistant sideris said in the future sideris plans to investigate other aspects of the new design such as how resistant hsr columns are to vehicular impact utilizing feedback from an expert panel of engineers from academia and industry the team is also investigating potential repair strategies for the hsr column design in comparison to strategies used for conventional bridge columns selecting the best repair strategy after an earthquake is no easy task because on the one hand it affects the direct repair costs and bridge downtime while on the other hand affects the future performance of the bridge in future earthquakes sideris said for a new design such as the hybrid sliding-rocking columns this can be even more challenging working on projects such as this that help people and help making their lives better during difficult times has always been meaningful and fulfilling for me sideris added this nsf-funded project includes collaborations with dr abbie b liel from the university of colorado at boulder a co-principal investigator on the project doctoral students mohammad salehi (texas a&m) and jakub valigura (university of colorado at boulder) several texas a&m undergraduate students and former texas a&m masters student hareesh goli
two faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering were among 54 academic inventors named to the spring 2019 class of senior members by the national academy of inventors (nai) the new senior members include dr robert balog and dr balakrishna haridas balog is an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and haridas is a professor of practice in the department of biomedical engineering and executive director for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship for the texas a&m engineering experiment station nai senior members are active faculty scientists and administrators from nai member institutions with success in patents licensing and commercialization they have produced technologies that have brought or aspire to bring real impact on the welfare of society we congratulate our outstanding faculty dr robert balog and dr balakrishna haridas for their election as senior members of the nai both are researchers at the top of their fields and leaders in engineering innovation said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering senior members also foster a spirit of innovation within their communities while educating and mentoring the next generation of inventors following a nomination for the nai senior member class individuals undergo a rigorous selection process by the nai senior member advisory committee comprised of elected nai members and other professionals considered pioneers in their respective field senior members are elected biannually and nominations are accepted on a rolling basis nominations are currently being accepted for the third senior member class on the nai website nai member institutions support some of the most elite innovators on the horizon with the nai senior member award distinction we are recognizing innovators that are rising stars in their fields said paul r sanberg nai president this new class is joining a prolific group of academic visionaries already defining tomorrow a full list of nai senior members is available on the nai website
many texans particularly the poor and elderly live in areas that are far from medical care telemonitoring the use of technology to monitor a patients health status remotely is an emerging medical practice intended to help these patients researchers from the department of industrial and systems engineering the department of health policy and management and the health care industry have collaborated on a report that reviews the importance of telemonitoring technology for the texas population the report reviewed the successful implementation of a semi-autonomous home health monitoring system that measures the blood pressure and/or blood glucose level of a patient and alerts medical staff when either hits a dangerous level if an alert occurs the staff would then contact the patient to determine if the situation reported by the system was accurate and if they need medical assistance this report is a beginning step to show how telemonitoring technologies can positively impact individuals especially those living in rural areas this system can help clinicians focus on the patients that need the most attention even if they are located remotely said dr hye-chung kum associate professor in the school of public health at texas a&m university health science center and principal investigator on the report cost-effective semi-automated telemonitoring systems have the potential to improve the health of the population through increased access to quality medical care while the report found that telemonitoring provided many benefits there are still some challenges to be worked out in the adoption of this technology we must address organizational cultural and societal barriers by involving a wide range of stakeholders in our research including the staff and medical assistants who receive organize and summarize the telemonitoring data in addition to physicians who review this data said dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering and co-author of the report the way a clinicians office is set up can create a disconnect between the individuals receiving data and those making decisions based on the data this disconnect can block the effectiveness of the telemonitoring system and these challenges will be addressed in future research what we learned through this research will help us address the challenges that arose and improve the system for future research and implementation in clinics said dr mark lawley department head of industrial and systems engineering and co-author of the report by using the information we have gathered and continuing to improve our knowledge of the pain points in the system we will help bring telemonitoring technologies to those texans who need it most
the texas a&m university system board of regents on thursday authorized the construction of a $130 million combat development complex at the texas a&m systems rellis campus in bryan the complex will include a one-of-a-kind kilometer-long tunnel that will make texas a&m engineering the hypersonics research capital of the country said m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of engineering at the rellis campus gen john mike murray commanding general for the us army futures command said the army futures command would develop test and evaluate next-generation technologies from the private sector and universities around the country the texas a&m system will build a $50 million facility with laboratories accelerator space and offices for the army futures command on the rellis campus plus invest another $30 million in infrastructure improvements to support the new facility the texas legislature also appropriated $50 million to establish an innovative proving ground which the texas a&m engineering experiment station will implement as an outdoor testing area at rellis for designing analyzing and validating new technologies in challenging environments gov greg abbott lt gov dan patrick and speaker dennis bonnen championed the $50 million to be included in the state appropriations bill for the proving ground this innovative new complex strengthens texas partnership with the united states military and further establishes our state as a hub for emerging technology said gov abbott i am proud to have worked with the lieutenant governor the speaker and the legislature to secure funding to move this project forward the state of texas will continue to work with the texas a&m system and the army futures command to modernize our defense and keep our armed forces at the forefront of technological advancement the army futures command headquartered in austin is drawing on research from universities around the country and the private sector to modernize the us army but the new facility at rellis will be the central hub where the newest and most innovative ideas are tested and evaluated – often by soldiers from nearby fort hood or members of the texas a&m university corps of cadets the aim is to shorten the time it takes to get emerging technologies from the lab to the field and maximize technology capabilities through soldier feedback a team of army and texas a&m system researchers will quickly evaluate prototypes that can be tested by soldiers in a real-world environment using a vast array of sensors and instruments at rellis we are humbled and grateful to the people of texas texas elected leaders and the texas a&m university system for the opportunity to further develop our strategic partnership through the establishment of the combat development complex on the rellis campus said gen murray this effort will certainly prove vital as we work together to discover develop and test ideas and concepts that will help our soldiers and our future soldiers to protect americas tomorrows beginning today not only is the rellis campus close enough to the army futures command headquarters and fort hood for ideal oversight it is also near texas a&ms world-class college of engineering and texas a&m engineering extension services disaster city the worlds largest search and rescue training facility that can double as a training site for urban warfare although the combat development complex isnt expected to be completed until june 2021 banks said the hiring of additional engineers will begin immediately three years ago rellis didnt even exist in may 2016 chancellor john sharp announced the creation of rellis – named for texas a&ms core values of respect excellence leadership loyalty integrity and selfless service he began the building boom to redevelop the 2 000-acre property with an initial investment of $300 million today the campus is home to the texas a&m systems transportation and engineering agencies as well as an education complex served by blinn college and texas a&m system universities from around the state more growth is coming and more construction is planned including a state-of-the-art data center the arrival of the army futures command will bring the rellis campus full circle back to the locations june 6 1943 opening as the bryan army air field it also takes rellis to another level as companies interested in working with the army futures command are expected to locate on or near the campus we consider serving the military of our nation to be the highest of honors and responsibility said sharp also having the army futures command at rellis is a game changer for that campus and the brazos valley area; rellis was envisioned as a research dynamo and the armys arrival will speed that up
texas a&m university is part of the national alliance for water innovation (nawi) consortium which was recently awarded a five-year $100 million energy-water desalination hub by the us department of energy (doe) that will address water security issues in the united states led by does lawrence berkeley national laboratory nawi is a research consortium with more than 35 members including three national research laboratories 19 university partners and 10 founding industry partners the hub will focus on early-stage research and development for energy-efficient and cost-competitive desalination technologies dr shankar chellam from the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering is lead researcher for the texas a&m team which includes drs yossef elabd and jodie lutkenhaus from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering; dr ying li from the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering; and dr karen wooley from the departments of chemistry chemical engineering and materials science and engineering this grant forces us to step out of our comfort zone working in individual labs i feel like i can actually do something to make a clear substantial difference in my lifetime at a large scale said chellam our efforts up until now have been roughly individual from one perspective the very fact that there are nearly 20 universities and scientists from national labs makes me believe that we will do something of clear value to not just the academic community but society at large chellam said the does goal is a four to five times energy reduction of desalination technologies they want us to not just come up with technological solutions but to come up with solutions for problems at a low energy consumption he said the nawi team will develop technologies that treat seawater brackish water and produced waters for use in municipal industrial agricultural utility oil and gas and other water supply needs these technology advancements will help domestic suppliers of water desalination systems to manufacture critical components and parts including the design and manufacture of small-modular and large-scale systems we also want to look at industrial needs said chellam i am doing what is called road mapping for the mining industry stakeholders come to the table saying these are our problems and we say ‘lets develop a pathway from problem to solution
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) has been awarded $7 million in federal grant funding from the us department of transportation to study automated driving systems us secretary of transportation elaine l chao made the announcement last week of $60 million in federal grant funding to eight projects in seven states to test the safe integration of automated driving systems on us roadways tees researchers will develop and test automated driving systems for rural roads without high-definition maps and with no or low-quality road signs or markings the principal investigator for the project is dr alireza talebpour assistant professor in texas a&m universitys zachry department of civil and environmental engineering co-principal investigators are dr reza langari department head professor and holder of the jr thompson chair in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution; dr dezhen song associate department head and professor and dr dilma da silva professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship ii both from the department of computer science and engineering this award from the us department of transportation will help texas a&m advance its autonomous vehicle research by studying rural roadways said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system most autonomous research so far has focused on cities but texas a&m wants to broaden the scope texas has plenty of rural roadways for testing which can help advance research in this area the department is awarding $60 million in grant funding to test the safe integration of automated vehicles into americas transportation system while ensuring that legitimate concerns about safety security and privacy are addressed said chao chao made the announcement at the federal highway administration research showcase an event promoting the importance of research and innovation in transportation the event featured exhibits and demonstrations of the ongoing research emerging technologies and capabilities of the turner-fairbank highway research center visit here for more information on the applications received
"the texas a&m university system national laboratories office hosted nuclear security enterprise (nse) day on sept 9 the nse includes the national nuclear security administration (nnsa) and laboratories and other sites around the country managed by the nnsa that maintain the nations nuclear stockpile the nse is among the nations largest employers of students in stem fields brian m smith deputy associate administrator for management at the nnsa said in his keynote address that the nuclear enterprise would hire more than 8 000 new employees across the stem disciplines this year these opportunities will address some of the worlds most complex engineering and scientific issues involving the safety and security of the nuclear stockpile supporting the us navys nuclear propulsion fleet and responding to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the united states and abroad the workforce demographics are favorable for college students today smith added supervisors are often only a few years older than them so the common ground of shared experiences as well as the visual representation of the possibility for upward mobility is immeasurably valuable and unique"""
more than 80 students from the college of engineering attended the annual recruiting event students from west texas a&m university prairie view a&m university and other a&m system universities attended the event as well nse day also featured graduate and undergraduate panel discussions designed to provide students with the opportunity to ask questions and learn about internships and jobs at national labs ryan vrecenar from sandia national laboratories explained that internships are key for recruitment at national labs and expanded on the freedom interns have to shape their own research projects ive worked with students who have done projects in areas such as software analysis software development and machine learning he said the ability to choose their own projects essentially means interns have a hand in molding the future career they want for themselves there are also opportunities to network and collaborate across labs which further opens up future career opportunities for students who arent sure if they have what it takes to pursue an internship or fellowship dustin leclair from the nnsa had a few words of advice show that you have an interest in your major beyond classes be a well-rounded person who can work with others and have an interest in technology good writing skills help as well since effective communication is important no one wants the conversation about a stray comma or grammar mistake to distract from an otherwise sound argument
at the nse day career fair hiring managers were available to collect resumes for open job postings internships and fellowships technical representatives from various companies and national labs spoke with students about employment opportunities and other benefits such as professional development and tuition reimbursement programs this industry is great about helping employees better themselves by supporting advanced degrees and certifications since all that effort is usually fed back into the job said jd mohundro from honeywell things like tuition reimbursement are usually based on a managers assessment of need but for engineering you often dont even need to make a business case since engineering is the business texas a&m is one of only a handful of prestigious universities selected to host an nse day event to engage stem students interested in a career with the nse this was texas a&ms second nse day
with a grant from the national science foundation texas a&m university will lead a multi-institution network to promote cyber expertise among research universities community colleges minority-serving institutions and other organizations in the southwestern united states the sweeter (southwest expertise in expanding training education and research) network will provide training and personnel to support and encourage collaboration across the invisible boundaries that often separate disciplines and institutions said dhruva chakravorty associate director for user services and research at texas a&m high performance research computing (hprc) units participating from texas a&m are the hprc texas a&m institute for data science (tamids) laboratory for molecular simulation in the college of science and texas a&m agrilife genomics and bioinformatics service nick duffield director of tamids will serve as sweeters educational coordinator dilma da silva professor in the department of computer science and engineering will join the projects evaluation team jian tao research scientist with hprc and the texas a&m engineering experiment station will serve as a senior investigator the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary research team is often limited by a researchers ability to draw together a cohort of collaborators with needed scientific expertise said chakravorty who will lead the new network sweeter will help to address that gap in our region vice president for research mark a barteau said here at texas a&m and across most of the global scientific community multidisciplinary research has evolved into the primary approach for conducting projects that take on great challenges and provide ground-breaking solutions we are proud to serve as the lead institution for this vital collaboration with our partners across the southwest sweeter will bring together partners from across texas new mexico and arizona the sweeter collaboration will leverage its partners expertise in computational sciences and large-scale computing to address long-standing bottlenecks that can constrain the sharing of resources across institutions the network also will increase accessibility in data science artificial intelligence cloud computing visualization cyber security and bioinformatics sweeter also includes west texas a&m university prairie view a&m university texas a&m university-san antonio university of texas at austin and its texas advanced computing center university of texas at san antonio university of arizona and new mexico state university also participating are industry affiliates google cloud platform and amazon web services as well as the non-governmental organizations lonestar education and research network (learn) and the national center for genome resources
in july of 2019 nuclear science technology and education for molten salt reactors (nustem) and safety assessment of molten salt fast reactor (samofar) led the molten salt reactor (msr) summer bootcamp on the campus of the delft university of technology in the netherlands this event brought together participants from universities across europe and north america to learn more about msrs through seminars hands-on activities a capstone assignment a poster session and a round table presentation both nustem and samofar are large-scale multi-institution research projects investigating msr technologies with an eye to training new experts in this important field dr jean ragusa professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university leads the nustem project which was funded by the department of energys nuclear energy university program as an integrated research program over three years nustem funds numerous faculty researchers and students from texas a&m the university of california-berkeley and the university of wisconsin-madison to contribute to the development of enabling technologies for molten salt reactor concepts and to educate young professionals in molten salt reactor technologies other texas a&m nuclear engineering researchers working on the nustem project include dr mark kimber dr cable kurwitz dr sean mcdeavitt dr luis ortega dr lin shao and dr pavel tsvetkov samofar is a consortium of 11 universities and research centers throughout europe funded by euratoms horizon 2020 program and tasked with proving the innovative safety concepts of the molten salt fast reactor by advanced experimental and numerical techniques delivering a breakthrough in nuclear safety and optimal waste management and creating a consortium of stakeholders to demonstrate the molten salt fast reactor beyond samofar the workshop consisted of a series of five modules representing five major components of msr research with faculty members actively working in each area presenting the modules the bootcamp consisted of a thematic mixture of research topics related to msrs said dr mauricio tano visiting assistant professor in the nuclear engineering department at texas a&m who participated in the event this included multiphysics thermal-hydraulics reactor control materials corrosion and the nuclear fuel cycle among others tano also found it very enriching to be presented with the practices and challenges of each of these fields in addition to these presentations each module also included a hands-on practical exercise intended to teach the students and researchers a new skill that they could bring into their research
the summer school broke the traditional lecturing model said texas a&m graduate student mohammed bani ahmad who works on the nustem project with kurwitz the workshop turned classes into interactive sessions where we solved problems and did calculations during class time this kept us students involved and interested the whole time overall it was an exceptional experience the participants also worked together in teams throughout the session on capstone assignments each team developed an msr research proposal in which they detailed the background to their research question the methods they would use to investigate the topic the impact of their proposed research the resources needed to pursue their intended topics along with potential timelines and milestones the challenges to the topic and how they would handle quality assurance during the lifetime of the project this exercise gave the participants valuable experience in writing a competitive proposal for research an award for best capstone submission went to the group of franziska schmidt (uc-berkeley) tano (texas a&m) and nicholas winner (uc-berkeley) for a project proposal titled in situ salt composition observation using optical techniques peter german of texas a&m won the award for best poster at the workshop through working together on the capstone teams presenting posters and talking about their research in round table discussions participants in the molten salt reactor summer bootcamp had the opportunity to share their work and network with other students and faculty in europe and north america working on msr research projects ramiro freile a texas a&m graduate student working on the nustem project with kimber said the connection with other students and professors who are working on the same project was extremely helpful it allowed me to discuss about future projects and possible collaborations with research centers and universities from all over the world
a study conducted by stanford university recently recognized dr jn reddy and dr alan needleman as the most highly cited researchers in the texas a&m university college of engineering reddy is ranked no 13 in all engineering fields and needleman is ranked 22 texas a&m and harvard are the only universities with two researchers ranked in the top 25 the study was published in plos and analyzed data collected during the period of 1996-2017 covering more than six million scientists in 22 major fields and 176 subfields reddy a university distinguished professor regents professor and the oscar s wyatt jr chair professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering is the author of 21 textbooks and nearly 700 journal papers and has been a leader in the applied mechanics field for more than 45 years he is widely known for his significant contributions to the field of applied mechanics through the authorship of widely used textbooks on the linear and nonlinear finite element analysis variational methods composite materials and structures and continuum mechanics and elasticity needleman a university distinguished professor tees eminent professor and professor in the department of materials science and engineering is a preeminent leader in the area of mathematical modeling of materials his contributions include the development of a ductile fracture computational methodology the development of cohesive surface methods for fracture analysis and creation of a framework that enables the use of discrete dislocation plasticity to solve general boundary value problems he is a member of the national academy of engineering and the american academy of arts and sciences
texas a&m university hosted the third workshop for the transatlantic partnership between the texas a&m engineering experiment station and arts et métiers institute of technology jointly referred to as the am2 partnership the workshop held oct 16-18 built on the two before it in hopes of presenting the vision for the am2 consortium on industry 40 which seeks to strengthen this partnership and advance technology surrounding artificial intelligence and data science for smart manufacturing in the future two years ago the president of france emmanuel macron launched a national strategy for artificial intelligence in context of the european union as it is key for the sovereignty of our nations and states said the honorable alexis andres consul general from the french consulate in houston however he continued in order to have a successful strategy you need to have adequate training progressive research and companies that excel in this area france cannot succeed in such a challenge alone
but ushering in progress to a global manufacturing industry has been challenging since companies do not share data with one another so collaborative solutions are rarely developed with any efficiency share your data and you will be stronger advised ivan iordanoff vice president of research and innovation at arts et métiers institute of technology of course data is high value so i understand the impulse to protect it iordanoff proposed a relaunch of the am2 innovation pillar to bring together industry giants as well as small-to-medium enterprises technological providers and startups we have 3 000 years of scientists and good knowledge of what we want to simulate he said now we need to determine how to collect data securely so that we can actually use our knowledge the french government has launched a plan called open data meant to make more data accessible by categorizing what kind of data it is based on whether it should be available to the wider public certain companies or no one at all for example all data relating to health of citizens should not be made available publicly said andres we need to be very clear on what can be used with artificial intelligence and development efforts the opportunity to discuss such topics is one of the many benefits of collaborating with so many professionals from academia and industry in attendance at this workshop since november 2017 we have been making significant progress toward forging a strong academia-industry partnership to address the emerging scientific technology and workforce development challenges for industry especially in the context of advanced materials and intelligent manufacturing said satish bukkapatnam professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m director of the tees institute for manufacturing systems and co-lead of the am2 initiative
the am2 partnership is of immense strategic benefit to both france and the us because it seeks to effect change to a global manufacturing industry through extensive research collaborations education programs and mutual faculty and student exchange initiatives that serve to elevate the am2 partnership as well over 100 aggies and gadzarts (students at arts et métiers) have participated in am2 global programs with aggies spending time in france and gadzarts in college station the arts et métiers and texas a&m partnership is a great example of how powerful the synergy of research and education can be remarked maria alves senior director of halliburton engineering global programs at texas a&m besides the great research collaboration solving problems that are relevant to the manufacturing industry around the world this partnership also allows our students to develop a global understanding of the engineering industry and the skills needed to lead in the global industry and society texas a&m is a tier-one research institution and among the top 10 engineering programs in the united states boasting over 35 faculty members with a focus on manufacturing and arts et métiers institute of technology is one of the most reputable engineering programs in france
at the annual america makes members meeting and exchange held last week rob gorham executive director of manufacturing initiatives in the office of business development at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and former america makes executive director was awarded the america makes distinguished collaborator award this award is their highest honor awarded to recipients for their contributions to the advancement of technology practices and innovation in the manufacturing industry i am humbled to receive the america makes distinguished collaborator award it symbolizes my drive and passion for using collaboration as a means to accelerate the broad adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies said gorham america makes as the first of 14 manufacturing usa institutes continues to demonstrate collaboration as a sustainable value proposition to the membership they serve and i am proud to be associated with such a great organization as part of the tees leadership team i am committed to bringing the same spirit of collaboration forward in doing our part to secure american manufacturing competitiveness through the missions of research commercialization and workforce development john wilczynski america makes executive director added during his tenure at america makes primarily as executive director rob worked tirelessly and enthusiastically to lay the strategic groundwork for the institutes continued success he strongly believes in and supports the mission of america makesa fact he continues to demonstrate in his current role at tees and our second america makes satellite center we congratulate rob for this well-deserved honor and his many contributions to america makes in march tees announced it was partnering with america makes to establish an america makes satellite center on the texas a&m university campus in college station the center will initially be located in texas a&ms emerging technologies building but will later be expanded to the texas a&m university system rellis campus
the mary kay oconnor process safety center (mkopsc) will host its 2019 international symposium in memory of dr sam mannan oct 22-24 the symposium will take place at the texas a&m hotel and conference center and registration is free for texas a&m students faculty and staff with a valid universal identification number the conference will be held on the main texas a&m university campus in college station texas and includes expert panels student poster presentations an exhibition of industry partners an early career forum industry tours awards ceremony a scavenger hunt and door prizes keynote speakers include jerry wascom vice president of operational excellencesafety health and environment at the exxon mobil corporation; dr elaine oran tees eminent professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m; and dr andrew hopkins emeritus professor for the college of arts and social science at australian national university this symposium serves as the crossroads for process safety where industry academia government agencies and other stakeholders come together to discuss critical issues of research in process safety more than 500 expert researchers and industry representatives from around the world will gather as a part of this two and a half-day symposium to share the latest information on important topics aimed at making the process industry safer 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 he served as director until his passing on sept 11 2018 this years symposium theme beyond regulatory compliance: making safety second nature is inspired by a quote from dr mannan that captures his approach to teaching and practicing process safety: safety should not be a priority; priorities change safety should be a core value a second nature 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
cybercrime continues to increase around the country and the state of texas has been hit particularly hard this year in august 22 cities across the state were hit in coordinated ransomware attacks when cities near college station were impacted local officials turned to the cybersecurity experts at the texas a&m university system who contributed their skill sets as a part of response efforts by the texas division of emergency management thats why texas comptroller glenn hegar stopped by texas a&m as part of his good for texas tour: cybersecurity edition the purpose of the tour is to highlight the impact of texas colleges and universities in the fight against cybercriminals according to a study released by office of the state comptroller of public accounts in 2017 texas ranked third among states in the number of cybercrime victims and second in the number of financial losses as a result as an emerging leader in cybersecurity education and research and workforce development texas a&m engineering continues to develop the tools needed to face global security challenges said hegar texas a&m university has steadily been building its reputation in cybersecurity research education and outreach over the past few years and is one of only a handful of colleges and universities in the nation designated as a center for academic excellence in all three national security agency focus areas: cyber operations cyber defense and research the texas a&m college of engineering is also educating the next generation of cyber warriors as part of its master of engineering in engineering degree with a specialization in cybersecurity the degree program gives graduates a unique skill set within the engineering workforce empowering them to anticipate identify assess and mitigate threats to cyber systems they can also receive an industry-recognized certification combined the degree and certification elevate students to highly qualified job candidatesas they pursue careers post-graduation the degrees and certifications conferred are regularly reported to the texas higher education coordinating board as metrics for its 60x30tx plan which has a goal of at least 60% of texans between the ages of 25-34 having a certificate or degree by 2030 graduates from any texas a&m academic or professional training program in cybersecurity are highly recruited with 90% of graduates accepting jobs upon graduation these students are very marketable after graduation due in part to the in-depth on-the-job training they receive as students the texas a&m college of engineerings research curriculum and workforce development programs are consistently recognized among the best in the nation in cybersecurity said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering our reputation for excellence in this field will expand as we address the important national problems of cybersecurity in critical infrastructure and manufacturing cybersecurity experts across the texas a&m system are frequently also sought after by government officials and peer institutions for their expertise that expertise was lauded recently by fbi director christopher wray who praised texas a&m for their outreach efforts in this important field during a us senate committee on the judiciary hearing in july texas a&ms reputation is also attracting cybersecurity heavyweights like dr stephen cambone who joined the texas a&m system in 2017 as associate vice chancellor for cybersecurity initiatives and is also a professor of practice in the college of engineering cambone is the former us undersecretary of defense for intelligence and brings with him a wealth of global perspective in which knowledge or experience in the cybersecurity realm is pertinent for graduates to be best prepared for important jobs in either the public or private industry sector earlier this year the us department of energy announced awards of up to $28 million as support for research development and demonstration of next-generation tools and technologies that will improve the cybersecurity and resilience of the nations critical energy infrastructure including the electric grid as well as oil and natural gas infrastructure networks among the 11 teams to receive an award includes the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) led by dr kate davis from the department of electrical and computer engineering daviss team from tees will develop a next-generation secure energy management system that can detect malicious and abnormal events through a fusion of cyber and physical data and algorithms effective integrated analytics and visualization the texas a&m system is also home to two research centers devoted to cybersecurity: the texas a&m cybersecurity center and the tees center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives
during this visit comptroller hegar toured several assets and met with many subject matter experts from across the texas a&m system including texas a&ms west campus data center; the texas a&m system security operations center and the college of engineerings zachry engineering education complex additionally he spoke with current students who are employed at various cybersecurity-related offices and a group from the texas a&m corps of cadets cyber corps the texas a&m system has some of the countrys best cybersecurity experts right here in the brazos valley said chancellor john sharp and that expertise has been recognized by the state and federal governments comptroller hegar is working hard to make sure the citizens of texas are protected against cybercrimes and so are we together we can help root out these cybercrimes before they happen
texas a&m university system us army and army futures command (afc) officials and the bush family were on the rellis campus today for the official groundbreaking and naming of the new bush combat development complex (bcdc) named in honor of former president george hw bush we face a complex security environment one that requires we maintain our competitive edge today while simultaneously building tomorrows i am grateful for the commitment from the people of texas and especially the texas a&m university system to help the army ensure we never send our service members into a fair fight now and in the future said james mcpherson senior official performing the duties of the under secretary of the army neil bush son of the president and the late barbara bush was in attendance and spoke on behalf of the bush family about the name my father loved texas a&m university and this community he also loved his country and was both a proud veteran and commander in chief having a facility dedicated to providing this nations military men and women with the most technologically advanced equipment possible is a tremendous honor to my fathers memory and his service to this country said bush the $130 million bush combat development complex will allow the texas a&m system to provide an ecosystem to accelerate research and technology development to modernize the army this investment is comprised of $50 million from the texas legislature during the 2019 session for establishing an innovative proving ground at rellis and $80 million from the texas a&m system board of regents for constructing a research innovation center and affiliated infrastructure also at rellis when we first envisioned how we could use the rellis campus to support the army one name came to mind george herbert walker bush the 41st us president the bush combat development complex will provide a living laboratory unlike any other and will uphold the highest values of service to our nation said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system last week us senator john cornyn the afc and the texas a&m system announced a cooperative agreement that will provide up to $65 million over the next five years to the texas a&m system to support research into new technologies to help the afc advance national security the goal is to shorten the time it takes to get emerging technologies from the lab to the field and maximize technology capabilities through soldier feedback
a team of army and texas a&m system researchers will quickly evaluate prototypes that can be tested by soldiers in a real-world environment using a vast array of sensors and instruments at rellis achieving the goals of the agreement will result in more capable and survivable hypersonic flight systems and materials more lethal directed energy systems and more effective autonomous maneuvering vehicles texas continues to be at the epicenter of development in advanced technologies and the new bush combat development complex at texas a&m systems rellis campus is a perfect example to continue that momentum said state rep greg bonnen (r-league city) the technology which will be created and tested here will not only help advance our military but it will also keep our soldiers safer in the field the agreement between the texas a&m system and us army combat capabilities development command army research laboratory is the first step in a long-term partnership with the army futures command said sharp the combat development complex will bring together diverse partners from businesses - large and small - academia and most importantly our soldiers said gen john mike murray commanding general for the army futures command thats an important lesson weve learned here at army futures command: when we bring the team together we can innovate faster to develop game-changing solutions by testing emerging technology in an operationally relevant environment with soldiers providing feedback we can evaluate it early to ensure were getting exactly what our troops need in the field the bcdc will be a full complement of facilities equipment and instrumentation consisting of the innovation proving ground (ipg); research integration center (ric); ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam); and the technology innovation and modernization catalyst (timc) the ipg will provide a challenging outdoor test site for autonomous aerial ground and subterranean vehicles the technological systems involved are highly complex involving networks and sensors and innovative operating systems the ric will be a state-of-the-art innovation hub where researchers students industry government and the military can collaborate to create emerging technologies that will modernize the army the use of high-tech maker spaces will lead to product development that is tested and evaluated by soldiers allowing for continual and real-time design feedback the bam will be a one-of-a-kind facility in which hypersonics and directed energy research will be conducted bam will feature an above-ground tunnel that is 1 kilometer long and 2 meters in diameter with integrated sensors the bam will also have laboratories runways underground and open-air battlefields and a resilient network of sensors and systems for data collection analysis and storage in addition to bams use by the afc it will be available to other military branches and defense contractors the timc will support the management and transfer of intellectual property and technology to industry for commercial applications the facility will provide space for early stage technology ventures business services commercialization training and startup launch support services to inventors and innovators army futures command has tasked texas a&m system researchers to focus on several key areas specifically the research will address hypersonic and laser systems; materials for withstanding hypervelocity blasts; coordinated maneuvering of air and ground vehicles; and resilient computer networks for autonomous vehicles to share up-to-the-moment battlefield information the target date for completion of the bcdcs innovative proving ground and research innovation center is june 2021
conventional gas-processing techniques emit carbon dioxide (co2) and raise the carbon footprint but a novel process developed by researchers from the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) could help gas-producing countries process their wealth of natural gas without significantly contributing to co2 emissions developed in qatar a country with a wealth of natural gas resources and unfortunately the high carbon footprint that comes with it the cargen (carbon-generator) reactor technology was conceived and designed by dr nimir o elbashir and his research team at texas a&m universitys qatar campus in collaboration with dr mahmoud m el-halwagi and dr debalina sengupta from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&ms main campus in college station texas this technology is believed to be the first of its kind that processes natural gas (methane) and captured co2 to produce both syngas a valuable precursor to numerous hydrocarbon feedstocks that drive qatars economy and high-quality solid carbon nanotubes (cnts) and unlike conventional processes all without releasing more co2 into the atmosphere elbashirs research focuses on converting natural gas into valuable hydrocarbon products including ultraclean fuels or useful chemicals in a process called gas-to-liquid conversion or gtl a major drawback of gtl processing is that it produces a lot of co2 which increases qatars carbon footprint and has led to the tiny country being named the worlds leading producer of co2 per capita under the umbrella of the tees gas and fuels research center (gfrc) headquartered at the qatar campus elbashir and researchers at both campuses have focused on how to reduce these co2 emissions elbashir directs the gfrc one of the largest tees research centers and a major initiative bringing together 32 multidisciplinary scientists and professors from texas a&ms campuses in texas and qatar all working in the same area but from different angles to speed up technology development in natural gas processing the cargen technology was developed to advance the dry reforming of natural gas which is especially attractive as it converts methane and co2 (both greenhouse gases) through a reactor to produce syngas a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen that is then processed to make liquid hydrocarbons and ultraclean fuels this process however requires a lot of heat to drive the chemical reactions this heat usually comes from burning fuels which emits even more co2 elbashirs team has designed the novel cargen reactor a second reactor added to the reforming process along with a catalyst to drive the chemical reactions to produce expensive carbon nanotubes and syngas from co2 and methane these high-quality carbon nanotubes can be used in several industries including steel and cement while the syngas can be turned into ultra-clean fuels and value-added products the process can be driven by either electric or solar power eliminating the need to burn fuel and thereby resulting in much lower co2 emissions than conventional technologies we are making co2 emissions into two products that are important to the economy in gas-processing countries such as the united states and qatar and will broaden the role of hydrocarbons in qatars manufacturing facilities elbashir said cnts are very expensive and extremely versatile and can be used to manufacture products such as computers and other high-quality materials and at the same time we are also producing syngas which can then be used to make the chemicals that the chemical processing industries rely on
phd student mohamed sufiyan challiwala who has been a significant contributor to the project said the cargen reactor is a result of a nearly $5 million exceptional proposal grant from the qatar national research funds national priorities research program challiwala started working on the project as a masters student in chemical engineering at texas a&m at qatar before pursuing his phd through the main campus and beginning his doctoral research in qatar cargen provides a new perspective on the implementation of natural gas reforming technology rather than considering carbon or ‘coke formation as a process challenge cargen treats it as an opportunity to convert at least 65 percent of co2 per pass with 50 percent lower energy requirements challiwala said most importantly it produces cnts and carbon fibers that are considered next-generation materials with tremendous applications because of its uniqueness this process is now patented with the support of qatar foundation dr hanif choudhury a research scientist in elbashirs research group said the cargen concept of cnt generation has been validated at the micro- milli- and gram scales with the quality of the carbon nanotubes controlled and preserved at every scale the next step is partnering with industry collaborators to scale up the technology even further this is a major achievement in the way people will look at co2 utilization in the future elbashir said its a homegrown technology developed in qatar based on the interest of qatar to utilize and sequester co2 and reduce the countrys carbon footprint but its applicable in any and all gas-processing countries we are producing material out of it not just liquid fuel that will be burned to produce something else or power a car for example which then puts co2 back into the atmosphere if we can scale up this technology it will be a turning point for everyone worried about co2
if youve ever used a smartphone or a fitness tracker youve likely been using a device thats a part of the internet of things a group of interconnected devices that communicate via remote servers but these central servers process huge amounts of data coming in from multiple devices that in turn cause processing delays diminishing user experience to boost data processing speeds dr zhangyang (atlas) wang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering has been awarded two grants from the national science foundation (nsf) for developing highly efficient and energy-saving machine learning algorithms for use on local devices rather than on remote servers wed like to develop algorithms that make devices like your phone run faster have low memory use and be more energy efficient wang says so if you want to use your iphone to take a photo with a facial recognition software for example energy efficient algorithms like the ones we develop are what ensure your battery doesnt drain within five minutes wangs first project enabling intelligent cameras in internet-of-things via a holistic platform algorithm and hardware co-design was awarded by the nsf energy power control and networks program and is a collaboration with yingyan lin and richard baraniuk from rice university this project will improve machine learning algorithms for object recognition and other computer vision applications such as traffic monitoring and self-driving cars particularly wangs team will optimize a type of machine learning algorithm called deep neural networks to process images for the second project harmonizing predictive algorithms and mixed-signal/precision circuits via computation-data access exchange and adaptive dataflows wangs research team has been awarded a total of $138 million from the nsf real-time machine learning (rtml) program with collaborators lin and baraniuk from rice university boris murmann from stanford university and yiran chen from duke university wang aims to enhance machine learning programs by training these algorithms in real time for a particular task like object recognition this approach will make the algorithms progressively better at doing the task over time one of the many applications of his research is drone-based object detection systems that can learn new environments without human supervision if we think of monitoring wide terrains for rescue operations drones using our algorithms will be able to survey a large area more efficiently while continuously learning the layout of the new environment wang says when their algorithms are ready for public use wang and his collaborators plan to post them on openstax a nonprofit online education company created by baraniuk so as to lower the cost for people to access educational resources and encourage a global effort to address challenges in developing and improving software related to computer vision the nsf and defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) have teamed up to issue these grants through the rtml crosscutting program to explore high-performance energy-efficient hardware and machine learning architectures that can learn from a continuous stream of new data in real time the rtml program is a part of darpas electronics resurgence initiative a five-year $15 billion investment in the future of domestic us government and defense electronics systems out of over 100 submissions wangs team was one of only six selected for large grants further solidifying his groups leading role in the machine learning field
us senator john cornyn joined the us army futures command and the texas a&m university system to announce a cooperative agreement that will provide up to $65 million over five years to texas a&m supporting research into new technologies to help the army futures command modernize the nations fighting force our countrys military readiness depends on innovation and the army futures command is on the front line of that fight said sen cornyn this partnership with the texas a&m university system will ensure we have the best and the brightest working to address rapidly evolving threats and maintain our strategic advantage around the world the senator appeared at a press conference with gen john mike murray and chancellor john sharp after being briefed on the details of the agreement and plans for a $130 million combat development complex at the rellis campus in bryan and the armys plans for modernization this investment is comprised of $50 million from the texas legislature during 2019 session for establishing an innovative proving ground at rellis and $80 million from the texas a&m system board of regents for constructing a research innovation center also at rellis the agreement between the texas a&m system and the us army combat capabilities development command army research laboratory is the first step in a long-term partnership with the army futures command army futures command is excited to continue our collaboration with various partners in texas to successfully modernize our army the work conducted at the rellis campus in the coming years will directly impact our soldiers readiness equipment and capabilities said gen murray essential to that relationship is the creation of the combat development complex at rellis a 2 000-acre campus with already almost half-billion dollars in new construction and with more on the drawing boards the combat development complex will help develop prototypes for defense-related hypersonics and directed energy in a one-of-a-kind kilometer-long tunnel it will have laboratories runways underground and open-air battlefields and a resilient network of sensors and systems for data collection analysis and storage the texas a&m system is already contributing significantly to our nations defense with our duties helping manage the los alamos national laboratory said sharp we are proud that army futures command has chosen to work with us on their important mission through the cooperative agreement army futures command has tasked texas a&m system researchers to focus on several key areas specifically the research will address hypersonic and laser weaponry; materials for withstanding hypervelocity blasts; coordinated maneuvering of air and ground vehicles; and resilient computer networks for autonomous vehicles to share up-to-the-moment battlefield information hypersonic is speeds of mach 5 or faster the us military is making a major push to advance laser and hypersonic defense systems senator john cornyn a republican from texas is a member of the senate finance intelligence and judiciary committees
with the help of a grant from the nasa innovative advanced concepts program a texas a&m university-led research team will continue the development of a new type of propulsion system possibly enabling missions to the nearest stars in our lifetime since the launch of sputnik in 1957 space probes have explored our neighboring planets their moons and other minor bodies of the solar system the farthest spacecraft from earth voyager 1 has now left the influence of the sun and has entered interstellar space despite traveling at 38 600 miles per hour voyager would still take 74 000 years to reach the nearest star (other than our sun) proxima centauri the greatest obstacle to exploration beyond the outer planets and into interstellar space is traversing such distances in a reasonable time which requires tremendous speed even a 100-year mission to the rocky exoplanet proxima b entails traveling at 5% the speed of light these daunting requirements far exceed the current capabilities of chemical or plasma propulsion systems
through the nasa innovative advanced concepts (niac) phase ii grant the team led by dr chris limbach assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m has proposed combining a laser beam and a neutral particle beam using them to push a spacecraft to nearly 10% the speed of light unlike either beam alone the researchers are tailoring the beam parameters to exploit the refraction of light and optical forces to eliminate the spreading or expansion of the beams which would otherwise decrease thrust and limit the maximum speed this process known as self-guiding enables the beams to continue pushing and accelerating the spacecraft over millions of kilometers in addition to limbach the team includes dr ken hara assistant professor at stanford university and dr alexandros gerakis assistant professor at texas a&mthe current investigation was preceded by a nine-month niac phase i study where the team looked at the physics and feasibility of this innovative concept and identified technology requirements they also developed high-fidelity modeling tools to simulate how light propagates through the particle beam and how the particles respond to the light field while traveling millions of kilometers through space for phase ii the team will spend two years further refining the propulsion concept by addressing unknown questions found in phase i including the interaction between the propulsion beams and the spacecraft this will include development of advanced numerical simulation tools and complementary laboratory experimentsexperiments will be conducted at the aerospace laboratory for lasers electromagnetics and optics (allemo) they intend to simulate the space environment using an ultra-high vacuum system to show they can produce a neutral particle beam with the properties required for self guiding the team will pass an atomic rubidium vapor through a convergent/divergent nozzle to produce a supersonic jet then a highly directional beam will be created by applying laser doppler cooling a technique that will bring the atom temperature to less than -459 f just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero this will allow the researchers to perform experiments on self guiding with lower power laser systems these experiments can be used to validate computational simulation tools and show the feasibility of the innovative propulsion technique at the end of phase ii the team wants to demonstrate progress toward future implementation of this propulsion technique including beam source development an improved understanding of the physics and the completion of modeling tools needed to design a full-scale system
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 team received $44 million for their project secure monitoring and control of solar pv systems through dynamic watermarking their goal is to develop and demonstrate a cyber-resilient operation for power distribution systems with massively photovoltaic (pv) generation such as rooftop solar panels it is led by dr le xie (lead pi) dr pr kumar and dr prasad enjeti from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university partners include researchers from mit centerpoint energy argonne national laboratory (anl) and the illinois institute of technology (iit) with their project funding they will develop and demonstrate an active defense mechanism of the pv distribution system operation using a dynamic watermarking technique to monitor the cybersecurity the technique involves injecting a probe signal onto the grid to authenticate grid actions the approach will include real-time deployment of online computational algorithms in real-world critical locations the physical layer includes power transmission lines transformers solar generation units and power electronics devices the cyber layer includes communication control and sensing (meters) said xie these two layers tightly interact with each other hackers can compromise the pv distribution system by intruding into the cyber layer or manipulating the meter readings so we hope our pv distribution system can be immune to potential cyberattacks therefore cyber resilient xie said that by injecting a (small) private signal with certain signatures into the grid an indelible signature will be imprinted in the measurements from sensors and while hackers may compromise the grid by manipulating the sensors with such an indelible signature any cyberattacks on the sensors will be detected by checking the existence of the imprinted signature as any cyberattacks on the sensors will distort the signature using this idea tong huang bharadwaj satchidanandan kumar and xie designed a framework of securing automatic generation control (agc) which is a crucial frequency regulation scheme in bulk power systems the research funded by doe is built upon the preliminary success on agc a paper describing the preliminary success appears in ieee transactions on power systems by this technique we can determine if the grid is manipulated by hackers this is what we mean by authenticating grid actions xie said adding that they would need to develop an algorithm based on the watermarking method theory which they would then test on an existing system this would drive the innovation ecosystem of solar generation integration with a cost-effective yet powerful defense mechanism against sophisticated cyberattacks on the grid the comprehensive dynamic modeling of pv-dominant distribution systems would then be established we propose a defense framework against any cyberattacks on the telemetered measurements in the pv-dominated distribution system regardless of the attack model/objective he said this is valuable in terms of providing a general-purpose guarantee since the objectives of adversaries are unpredictable this team is uniquely composed and positioned to address the challenges in the future solar-rich distribution systems and advance the frontier of cyber-resilient situational awareness of deep pv-penetrated distribution systems xie said
the engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research was presented to 23 texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers and their teams during the tees advisory board meeting nov 15 the award which is presented to tees researchers who have secured significant research grants of $1 million or more were given to the following: pi: rodney bowersox aerospace engineering and director texas a&m national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory $12 million grant from the department of energy-office of naval research for turbulence transport in extreme non-equilibrium environments pi: ya wang mechanical engineering $1 million grant from the department of energy for sleepir-synchronized low-energy electronically-chopped passive infrared sensor for occupancy detection pi: dan hill petroleum engineering $1 million grant from marathon oil company for marathon oil unconventional fluid flow/enhanced oil recovery pi: vladislav yakovlev biomedical engineering $11 million grant from the department of health and human services-national institutes of health-national institute of general medical science for brillouin microscope for biomedical research pi: david staack mechanical engineering and director engineering laboratory instruction co-pis: dion antao alan palazzolo and li-jung tai mechanical engineering $11 million grant from the department of energy for targeted energy focusing to induce micro-cracking for reduced cutting energy and increased rate of penetration pi: zhangyang wang computer science and engineering co-pis: jack mortazavi computer science and engineering; and xiaoning qian electrical and computer engineering $12 million grant from the department of defense-air force research laboratory for context-aware biomarker discovery and health monitoring by adaptive integration of heterogeneous smartphone signals pi: roozbeh jafari biomedical engineering co-pi: jack mortazavi computer science and engineering $12 million grant from the department of health and human services-national institutes of health-national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering for a context-aware cuff-less wearable ambulatory blood pressure monitor using a bio-impedance sensor array pi: mary beth hueste civil and environmental engineering and associate department head for undergraduate programs co-pis: stefan hurlebaus and john mander civil and environmental engineering; anol mukhopadhyay texas a&m transportation institute $13 million grant from the texas department of transportation for utilization of uhpc bridge superstructures in texas pi: carl benner electrical and computer engineering co-pis: karthick muthu manivannan and jeffrey wischkaemper electrical and computer engineering $13 million grant from the southern california edison for wildfire risk reduction via distribution fault anticipation technology: demonstration and integration collaboration at california utilities pi: efstratios pistikopoulos chemical engineering and director texas a&m energy institute co-pi: mahmoud el-halwagi chemical engineering $14 million grant from the department of energy for smart manufacturing for chemical processing energy efficient operation of air separation unit pi: swaminathan gopalswamy mechanical engineering and co-director center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems co-pi: srikanth saripalli mechanical engineering and co-director center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems $15 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for arches: autonomous resilient cognitive heterogenous swarms (off-road unmanned ground vehicle (ugv) mobility technology demonstrator platform (mtdp)) pi: katherine davis electrical and computer engineering co-pis: ana goulart engineering technology and industrial distribution; thomas overbye electrical and computer engineering and director smart grid center; daniel ragsdale computer science and engineering $2 million grant from the department of energy-washington for deep cyber-physical situational awareness for energy systems: a secure foundation for next-generation energy management pi: arum han electrical and computer engineering co-pi: arul jayaraman chemical engineering $23 million grant from the department of defense-advanced research projects agency for isentry: an integrated microfluidics-enabled system for phenotypic detection of biothreat agents pi: karen butler-purry electrical and computer engineering and associate provost for graduate and professional studies co-pis: stephanie burrs and irvin osborbe-lee prairie view a&m university; mahmoud khasawneh and john kilburn texas a&m international university; reuben may sociology; frank pezold texas a&m university-corpus christi; christine stanley education and human development; karan watson electrical and computer engineering and director institute for engineering education and innovation $4 million grant from the national science foundation for louis stokes stem pathways and research alliance: texas a&m system/louis stokes alliance for minority participation pi: yassin hassan nuclear engineering co-pi: sean mcdeavitt nuclear engineering and director nuclear science and science center $5 million grant from texas thorium llc for thorium research initiative pi: bahman yazdani associate director and research engineer energy systems laboratory (esl) co-pis: juan carlos baltazar associate director and manager esl; david claridge mechanical engineering and director esl; joseph martinez associate director and senior research engineer esl; ahmet ugursal and carols yagua assistant research engineer esl $28 million grant from the city of houston for interlocal agreement for project design construction and program implementation of state energy conservation office loan funded energy initiatives agile technology development pi: m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories; dean of engineering texas a&m university; director tees co-pis: narasimha annapareddy associate agency director for strategic initiatives and centers college of engineering texas a&m and director advanced scientific computing center; brad brown military outreach and corps of cadets army futures command; nancy currie-gregg industrial and systems engineering; yossef elabd chemical engineering and associate dean for research; tim green civil and environmental engineering; cynthia hipwell mechanical engineering; john hurtado aerospace engineering deputy director and chief technology officer bush combat development complex; dimitris lagoudas aerospace engineering senior associate dean for research associate vice chancellor for engineering and deputy director tees; james wall director texas a&m center for applied technology $2 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory (arl) for arl: innovative ecosystem performance research pi: rodney bowersox aerospace engineering and director texas a&m national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory co-pis: helen reed aerospace engineering and director aggiesat lab satellite program and computational stability and transition lab; edward white aerospace engineering $2 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for arl: hypersonic vehicles pi: richard miles aerospace engineering co-pi: christopher limbach aerospace engineering $19 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for arl: laser diagnostics and lethality pi: thomas lacy mechanical engineering co-pis: waruna kulatilaka mechanical engineering; junuthula reddy aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering and director center of innovation in mechanics for design and manufacturing; justin wilkerson mechanical engineering $11 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for arl: materials pi: swaminathan gopalswamy mechanical engineering and co-director center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems co-pis: srikanth saripalli mechanical engineering and co-director center for autonomous vehicles and sensor systems; gholamreza langari aerospace engineering and engineering technology and industrial distribution; john valasek aerospace engineering and director vehicle systems and control laboratory and graduate studies program $23 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for arl: air ground coordination pi: panganamala kumar electrical and computer engineering co-pi: srinivas shakkottai electrical and computer engineering $17 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for arl: tactical networks
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
artificial intelligence (ai) the branch of computer science that emphasizes the development of machines thinking and working like humans is becoming more and more popular it is used extensively in many businesses – medicine education law manufacturing – to name a few researchers at texas a&m university are working to bring ai to one of the largest industries in the world construction the construction industry is booming and is one of the largest global industries employing 7% of the worlds workforce and contributing more than $10 trillion annually to the world economy however it has the lowest productivity of any manufacturing industry due to labor-intensive jobs that have significant safety risks and rising costs of materials to help change this dr zachary grasley and his colleagues dr amir behzadan dr zj pei dr korok ray and dr nick duffield have received a planning grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to prepare for bringing ai to the construction industry grasley director of the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) and professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m said new ai technologies have the potential to address many of the major challenges the construction industry faces leading to a positive economic and social impact he feels ai is poised to revolutionize the construction industry similarly to how the assembly line revolutionized the automobile industry leading to significant cost reductions higher productivity and safer better-paying jobs theres a lot of opportunity there not only in terms of safety and in automating difficult tasks said grasley artificial intelligence can significantly help as we develop new materials and new methods of construction like 3d printing of structures for instance it opens the door to the optimization of both materials and structural design in a way that weve never done before the planning grants for engineering research centers competition is the first step to bringing ai to the construction industry the competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the nsf engineering research center (erc) program and is intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent center-scale engineering research grasleys $100 000 year-long planning grant will support the development of a research roadmap for implementing ai into the construction industry and the formation of a multi-institutional team working toward an erc ercs are one of the largest grants that the national science foundation gives out to support game-changing large-scale initiatives that transform society in some way shape or form said grasley the erc grants are so large in scope that in order to write a competitive proposal for them you really have to start well in advance building a team defining the theme road-mapping and identifying the right industrial and academic partners grasley said with the grant they will create a 10-member advisory board of experts in ai construction industry leaders and government representatives to identify and define their objectives they will also hold a symposium on ai in construction to develop the roadmap to achieve the erc vision and identify the academic partners finally they will have a writing workshop to produce an outline of the proposal with the grant and other advantages they currently have at texas a&m grasley feels they have a good chance of receiving the erc from the nsf the cir is a brand-new state-of-the-art center and because of the size of our engineering program the fact that we have the texas a&m transportation institute and such a large construction science department and civil engineering department we have the breadth of expertise particularly on the construction side that no place else has across the country grasley said we also have great connections to the construction industry and its part of the cir mission to develop technologies that will actually go out and be used and impact society through transforming the construction industry
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
"imagine a tool that can discover problems on utility lines before outages before power failures spark deadly wildfires or before fears of wildfires prompt massive pre-emptive power outages such as those suffered recently by millions of californians well the tool exists it is available today and it works engineers at texas a&m university have developed the tool a one-of-a-kind diagnostic software called distribution fault anticipation (dfa) it is a software that interprets variations in electrical currents on utility circuits caused by deteriorating conditions or equipment it warns utility operators to respond to particular problems before they cause outages and possibly spark fires electric power companies have nothing else like it dfa has been tested successfully by more than a dozen utilities in texas and elsewhere over the past six yearsnow dfa is being tested by two of californias biggest utilities pacific gas & electric (pg&e) and southern california edison (sce) with encouragement from the california public utilities commission (cpuc) the cpuc administered a 2018 state law requiring utilities to submit wildfire mitigation plans texas a&m researchers also are preparing to test dfa at utilities in australia and new zealand dfa uses a sophisticated set of algorithms based on patterns discovered and refined through 15 years of research research that involved monitoring in-service distribution lines at more than a dozen electrical utilities the technology was developed by a texas a&m research team led by dr b don russell distinguished professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and carl l benner research professor in the department research support for dfa was provided by the electric power research institute the state of texas and various electric utilities russell and benner likened dfa to the computer-based diagnostic tools found in modern cars ones that warn when fluids are running dry or that an engine part is close to failure utility systems operate today like my 1950s chevy russell said they have some fuses and breakers and things but they really dont have anything diagnostic they dont have that computer under the hood telling them whats about to go wrong electrical power outages are commonly caused by falling trees tearing down lines or failures of devices such as clamps switches conductors and connectors the devices often deteriorate over weeks or months impacting electrical currents in small ways before an actual failure perhaps triggered by high winds dfa continuously monitors current sensors and applies its algorithms to detect and report abnormalities for investigation and repair until now utility companies have had little choice but to wait and react to failures electrical equipment is extremely durable and deterioration of devices is difficult or impossible to see that makes visual inspection and preventive maintenance only marginally helpful utilities have long recognized that something new is needed especially given the nations aging infrastructure dfa answers this need texas a&m engineers developed dfa to help utility companies improve reliability in general but they also saw its potential for preventing wildfires while russell and benner emphasize that dfa will not detect all utility failures they say it is the only diagnostic tool available to analyze in real time miles of working circuits and identify explicitly what is failing not only could the dfa technology prevent fires it could give utility companies a tool to reduce the number and size of pre-emptive power outages which now are based on dry conditions and weather forecasts power is being turned off with nothing known to be wrong with a given circuit russell said utilities need a crystal ball something telling them which circuit is going to start a fire tomorrow because it is already unhealthy we are kind of that crystal ball pacific gas & electric is now testing six dfa circuit monitoring devices; southern california edison is testing 60 dfa monitors both utilities are conducting the tests under two-year research contracts with texas a&m commercial installation for widespread use in california would cost far less than the billions of dollars in recent wildfire damage or the billions in spending being discussed for other types of preventive measures for example san francisco based pg&e the states largest utility would need several thousand devices to cover all 106 681 miles of distribution circuit lines a dfa device costs up to $15 000 pg&e filed for bankruptcy this past january citing potential liabilities of more than $30 billion stemming from wildfires it estimates it will need another $75 billion or more to comply with a judges maintenance plan widespread use of dfa could lower maintenance costs and prevent future tragedies dfa is a new tool allowing utilities to transform their operating procedures to find and fix problems before catastrophic failures "" russell said utilities operators need real-time situational awareness of the health of their circuits…dfa does that this article originally appeared on the texas a&m university system's news site"
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
also unlike most other biological molecules tryptophan interacts with ultraviolet light when hit by ultraviolet light tryptophan molecules absorb the radiation and get energized and when they lose this absorbed energy they reemit a much weaker ultraviolet light dubbed fluorescent light rentzepis and his team investigated if these ultraviolet light-tryptophan interactions played a role in killing bacteria for their experiments the texas a&m team looked at the fluorescent light emitted by tryptophan molecules in escherichia coli and bacillus subtilis bacteria after shining a beam of ultraviolet radiation on them as expected they found that at the end of radiation which typically lasted several minutes the fluorescent light emitted by the tryptophan molecules was drastically reduced indicating that the radiation was killing the bacteria however to their surprise this decreased fluorescent light came after an initial increase immediately after the radiation was turned on the surge of the emitted ultraviolet light just after the radiation onset made us suspect that changes happening to tryptophan molecules before they are ultimately destroyed by ultraviolet light may be involved in how radiation gets into the bacteria said rentzepis past studies have shown that when hit by ultraviolet light protein molecules that are normally wound up in complicated shapes unfold and as a result expose tryptophan rentzepis research groups findings suggest that in bacteria ultraviolet light might unfold membrane proteins and detach tryptophan molecules which may then cause the initial increase in the emitted light signal with tryptophan plucked out of the cell membrane the space left behind forms gaping holes for the ultraviolet light to enter and damage dna he said while the general profile of emitted light is similar for different strains of bacteria rentzepis noted that there are subtle differences that are unique to each species and keeping track of these differences might help in identifying and cataloging different species of bacteria rentzepis and his team have also developed and patented the technology for a handheld device that can collect emitted light from bacteria during irradiation bacterial invasion can happen in different contexts from food processing centers to operation theaters he said but we now have both the science and technology to address these real-world problems since we have a grip on the biological basis behind ultraviolet-induced bacteria inactivation and an instrument that can within minutes and in situ determine how many bacteria are dead after radiation other contributors to the research include dr runze li and dinesh dhankhar anushka nagpal and arjun krishnamoorthi from the texas a&m department of department of electrical and computer engineering; dr maria king from texas a&m biological and agricultural engineering; dr jie chen from shanghai jiao tong universitys center for ultrafast science and technology and dr thomas c cesario from university of california at irvines school of medicine this work was supported in part by the welch foundation the air force office of scientific research and the texas a&m engineering experiment station funds
researchers at texas a&m university have recently developed a more comprehensive mathematical framework that can help engineers at petrochemical plants to not only reduce production costs and increase economic gain but also make these factories safer and more environmentally friendly the researchers said their new algorithm is a one-stop solution that can assist engineers in selecting the most optimal design for chemical processing units within their operating plants the novelty of our algorithm is that it provides a sophisticated decision-making tool that can be used by project engineers to decide between competing designs for their chemical processing units said dr prerna jain who worked in the mary kay oconnor process safety center as a graduate student at texas a&m and is currently an engineer at an oil and gas company our tool integrates data from potential equipment hazards economic data and more importantly complex man-machine interactions to generate a single numerical output this number then points to a design that maximizes profit while still lowering environmental and hazardous impacts an article on the research teams findings was published in october in acs sustainable chemistry and engineering before petroleum-based products are used for everyday purposes like heating homes or powering-up vehicles crude oil passes through a series of processing steps for refinement and packaging however each processing phase can be designed in a variety of ways using different technologies and a variable amount of manpower and so each design may differ vastly in terms of cost safety environmental impact and maintenance to select one design among many possible options engineers often resort to a numerical value called the return on investment this metric in its simplest version indicates the financial benefit or profit resulting from a certain initial monetary investment on a given design however engineers often use more extensive algorithms that include factors such as environmental impact and worker safety to compute return on investment values but jain noted that even these more complex algorithms have largely overlooked social factors such as how often operating procedure manuals at a chemical plant are updated or how frequently equipment maintenance is performed this human element is important to include while computing the return on investment she said because faulty man-equipment interactions often underlie chemical plant disasters like fires and explosions dr mahmoud el-halwagi professor and the bryan research and engineering chair in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m pointed out that social and safety factors are typically considered after major design decisions regarding the chemical plant have been made at this stage key design components are already finalized and it becomes rather difficult to make substantial design modifications he said to address these deficits jain and her team developed an even more elaborate mathematical framework that could be implemented when designing chemical processing units furthermore their algorithm now included man-machine interactions in the new algorithm they plugged in a quantity called resilience or the ability of a chemical plant to recover from a stressed state just as a rubber band can only be stretched to its elastic limit before it breaks chemical plants if used to their maximum capacity and without safety measures in place can degrade leading to catastrophes said jain by incorporating resilience into our algorithm we wanted to include the complex interactions between man and technology that can affect resilience and by extension the estimation of the return of investment once the algorithm was fully developed the researchers used it to compare different designs of gas compressor systems frequently used in chemical plants in particular they contrasted the value of the return on investment for a compression system existing in a chemical plant with five other hypothetical designs 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
researchers at texas a&m university have recently developed a more comprehensive mathematical framework that can help engineers at petrochemical plants to not only reduce production costs and increase economic gain but also make these factories safer and more environmentally friendly the researchers said their new algorithm is a one-stop solution that can assist engineers in selecting the most optimal design for chemical processing units within their operating plants the novelty of our algorithm is that it provides a sophisticated decision-making tool that can be used by project engineers to decide between competing designs for their chemical processing units said dr prerna jain who worked in the mary kay oconnor process safety center as a graduate student at texas a&m and is currently an engineer at an oil and gas company our tool integrates data from potential equipment hazards economic data and more importantly complex man-machine interactions to generate a single numerical output this number then points to a design that maximizes profit while still lowering environmental and hazardous impacts an article on the research teams findings was published in october in acs sustainable chemistry and engineering before petroleum-based products are used for everyday purposes like heating homes or powering-up vehicles crude oil passes through a series of processing steps for refinement and packaging however each processing phase can be designed in a variety of ways using different technologies and a variable amount of manpower and so each design may differ vastly in terms of cost safety environmental impact and maintenance to select one design among many possible options engineers often resort to a numerical value called the return on investment this metric in its simplest version indicates the financial benefit or profit resulting from a certain initial monetary investment on a given design however engineers often use more extensive algorithms that include factors such as environmental impact and worker safety to compute return on investment values but jain noted that even these more complex algorithms have largely overlooked social factors such as how often operating procedure manuals at a chemical plant are updated or how frequently equipment maintenance is performed this human element is important to include while computing the return on investment she said because faulty man-equipment interactions often underlie chemical plant disasters like fires and explosions dr mahmoud el-halwagi professor and the bryan research and engineering chair in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m pointed out that social and safety factors are typically considered after major design decisions regarding the chemical plant have been made at this stage key design components are already finalized and it becomes rather difficult to make substantial design modifications he said to address these deficits jain and her team developed an even more elaborate mathematical framework that could be implemented when designing chemical processing units furthermore their algorithm now included man-machine interactions in the new algorithm they plugged in a quantity called resilience or the ability of a chemical plant to recover from a stressed state just as a rubber band can only be stretched to its elastic limit before it breaks chemical plants if used to their maximum capacity and without safety measures in place can degrade leading to catastrophes said jain by incorporating resilience into our algorithm we wanted to include the complex interactions between man and technology that can affect resilience and by extension the estimation of the return of investment once the algorithm was fully developed the researchers used it to compare different designs of gas compressor systems frequently used in chemical plants in particular they contrasted the value of the return on investment for a compression system existing in a chemical plant with five other hypothetical designs
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
before dr qingsheng wang became an associate professor of chemical engineering at the mary kay o'connor process safety center at texas a&m university he was a doctoral student working there wang answered a few questions about his journey from texas a&m and back and how this experience has shaped him into the researcher and mentor he is today q: can you tell us a little bit about what brought you to texas a&m university as a student a: dr f albert cotton brought me to texas a&m university it was 2005 and i had just completed my undergraduate and masters studies in chemistry from zhejiang university in china i wanted to pursue a phd and at that time dr cotton was a distinguished professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&m he was a very famous chemist with his name appearing in a few textbooks i really wanted to join his lab he was studying the chemistry behind metal-metal bonds an area of research i was interested in so i applied to the universitys graduate program in chemistry and i got in q: cotton was part of the chemistry department and you spent the majority of your graduate studies at texas a&m working as a researcher for the mary kay o'connor process safety center in the college of engineering how did you wind up there a: when i was in my second year of graduate school dr cotton passed away and so i was on the lookout for a new lab for my doctoral studies i did speak to many professors in that regard but the conversations i had with dr sam mannan really stood out he was the director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center which is a part of the department of chemical engineering i was fascinated by the kind of research they did at the center particularly on the reaction mechanisms that trigger chemical explosions i could apply a lot of my knowledge in quantum chemistry to study how volatile chemicals break down and eventually explode also i had the opportunity to work on projects that were industry-focused which made sense since most incidents of chemical explosions happen in industries q: are explosions common in chemical industries a: oh yes they happen pretty often and some of them are really big for example in 1947 there was an incident in texas city where ammonium nitrate which is a common fertilizer exploded because it accidentally caught on fire in 2013 in west texas the same chemical exploded and just last year the chemical safety board investigated a few incidents in fact the mary kay oconnor process safety center was established to educate engineers to identify and prevent potential fires and explosions before situations become irreversibly dangerous q: did you continue studying fires and explosions after graduate school a: yes i wanted to remain in academia and do more research on that topic oklahoma state university had an opening in the department of fire protection and safety engineering i applied interviewed and got an offer to join as an assistant professor almost immediately after in my lab i studied mostly fire safety and the combustion dynamics behind fires caused by burning different materials i was very fortunate that my training in chemistry and chemical engineering at texas a&m uniquely positioned me to study this topic q: in 2019 you returned to texas a&m after spending eight and a half years at oklahoma state university what made you come back a: my phd advisor dr mannan i was doing really well at oklahoma state; i was an endowed professor and was supervising several phd and masters students dr mannan called me one day and said that the mary kay o'connor process safety center was expanding and there were a few faculty positions that were available he said that the number of phd students at the center had increased a lot he wanted my help and i wanted to help but i also knew that coming back gave me the opportunity to give back to the institution i learned so much from it was win-win
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
while an undergraduate and graduate student at texas a&m university sekaran was introduced to hydrodynamic instabilities hydrodynamic instabilities – the study of fluids in motion and how their flow can be disrupted – look at how such instabilities can cause large-scale dynamic changes in systems (such as weather patterns) applying these concepts to ocean engineering early into her appointment in the department sekaran discovered that distinct flow patterns and instabilities could be simulated in the sea-surface microlayer opening a door for fundamental processes to be discoveredfocusing on the heat and mass transfer across the sea-surface microlayer sekaran and amini are looking to do just that: discover fundamental processes and understanding of the microlayer and how it impacts weather prediction and other systemsthe ocean engineering department is an exciting place to work in today sekaran said the experienced faculty is always willing to guide younger ones and we are all enthusiastic about the department growing in new directions ive also had the opportunity to work on some unique department initiatives such as the natural marine processes in engineering design program and am certain we will have an unparalleled group of aggie ocean engineers graduating soon
weve all shared the frustration software updates that are intended to make our applications run faster inadvertently end up doing just the opposite these bugs dubbed in the computer science field as performance regressions are time-consuming to fix since locating software errors normally requires substantial human intervention to overcome this obstacle researchers at texas a&m university in collaboration with computer scientists at intel labs have now developed a complete automated way of identifying the source of errors caused by software updates their algorithm based on a specialized form of machine learning called deep learning is not only turnkey but also quick finding performance bugs in a matter of a few hours instead of days updating software can sometimes turn on you when errors creep in and cause slowdowns this problem is even more exaggerated for companies that use large-scale software systems that are continuously evolving said dr abdullah muzahid assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering we have designed a convenient tool for diagnosing performance regressions that is compatible with a whole range of software and programming languages expanding its usefulness tremendously the researchers described their findings in the 32nd edition of advances in neural information processing systems from the proceedings of the neural information processing systems conference in december to pinpoint the source of errors within a software debuggers often check the status of performance counters within the central processing unit these counters are lines of code that monitor how the program is being executed on the computers hardware in the memory for example so when the software runs counters keep track of the number of times it accesses certain memory locations the time it stays there and when it exits among other things hence when the softwares behavior goes awry counters are again used for diagnostics performance counters give an idea of the execution health of the program said muzahid so if some program is not running as it is supposed to these counters will usually have the telltale sign of anomalous behavior however newer desktops and servers have hundreds of performance counters making it virtually impossible to keep track of all of their statuses manually and then look for aberrant patterns that are indicative of a performance error that is where muzahids machine learning comes in
by using deep learning the researchers were able to monitor data coming from a large number of the counters simultaneously by reducing the size of the data which is similar to compressing a high-resolution image to a fraction of its original size by changing its format in the lower dimensional data their algorithm could then look for patterns that deviate from normal when their algorithm was ready the researchers tested if it could find and diagnose a performance bug in a commercially available data management software used by companies to keep track of their numbers and figures first they trained their algorithm to recognize normal counter data by running an older glitch-free version of the data management software next they ran their algorithm on an updated version of the software with the performance regression they found that their algorithm located and diagnosed the bug within a few hours muzahid said this type of analysis could take a considerable amount of time if done manually in addition to diagnosing performance regressions in software muzahid noted that their deep learning algorithm has potential uses in other areas of research as well such as developing the technology needed for autonomous driving the basic idea is once again the same that is being able to detect an anomalous pattern said muzahid self-driving cars must be able to detect whether a car or a human is in front of it and then act accordingly so its again a form of anomaly detection and the good news is that is what our algorithm is already designed to do other contributors to the research include dr mejbah alam dr justin gottschlich dr nesime tatbul dr javier turek and dr timothy mattson from intel labs this research is partly funded by the national science foundation career grant and intel
baby diapers contact lenses and gelatin dessert while seemingly unrelated these items have one thing in common theyre made of highly absorbent substances called hydrogels that have versatile applications recently a type of biodegradable hydrogel dubbed microporous annealed particle (map) hydrogel has gained much attention for its potential to deliver stem cells for body tissue repair but it is currently unclear how these jelly-like materials affect the growth of their precious cellular cargo thereby limiting its use in regenerative medicine in a new study published in the november issue of acta biomaterialia researchers at texas a&m university have shown that map hydrogels programmed to biodegrade at an optimum pace create a fertile environment for bone stem cells to thrive and proliferate vigorously they found the space created by the withering of map hydrogels creates room for the stem cells to grow spread and form intricate cellular networks our research now shows that stem cells flourish on degrading map hydrogels; they also remodel their local environment to better suit their needs said dr daniel alge assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering these results have important implications for developing map hydrogel-based delivery systems particularly for regenerative medicine where we want to deliver cells that will replace damaged tissues with new and healthy ones map hydrogels are a newer breed of injectable hydrogels these soft materials are interconnected chains of extremely small beads made of polyethylene glycol a synthetic polymer although the microbeads cannot themselves cling to cells they can be engineered to present cell-binding proteins that can then attach to receptor molecules on the stem cells surface
once fastened onto the microbeads the stem cells use the space between the spheres to grow and transform into specialized cells like bone or skin cells and so when there is an injury map hydrogels can be used to deliver these new cells to help tissues regenerate however the health and behavior of stem cells within the map hydrogel environment has never been fully studied map hydrogels have superior mechanical and biocompatible properties so in principle they are a great platform to grow and maintain stem cells said alge but people in the field really dont have a good understanding of how stem cells behave in these materials to address this question the researchers studied the growth spread and function of bone stem cells in map hydrogels alge and his team used three samples of map hydrogels that differed only in the speed at which they degraded that is either slow fast or not at all first for the stem cells to attach onto the map hydrogels the researchers decorated the map hydrogels with a type of cell-binding protein they then tracked the stem cells as they grew using a high-resolution fluorescent microscope the researchers also repeated the same experiment using another cell-binding protein to investigate if cell-binding proteins also affected stem cell development within the hydrogels
to their surprise alges team found that for both types of cell-binding proteins the map hydrogels that degraded the fastest had the largest population of stem cells furthermore the cells were changing the shape of the map hydrogel as they spread and claimed more territory in the intact map hydrogel we could still see the spherical microbeads and the material was quite undamaged said alge by contrast the cells were making ridges and grooves in the degrading map hydrogels dynamically remodeling their environment the researchers also found that as the stem cells grew the quantity of bone proteins produced by the growing stem cells depended on which cell-binding protein was initially used in the map hydrogel alge noted that the insight gained through their study will greatly inform further research and development in map hydrogels for stem-cell therapies although map hydrogel degradability profoundly affects the growth of the stem cells we found that the interplay between the cell-binding proteins and the degradation is also important he said as we as a field make strides toward developing new map hydrogels for tissue engineering we must look at the effects of both degradability and cell-binding proteins to best utilize these materials for regenerative medicine other contributors to the research include dr shangjing xin from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m and dr carl a gregory from the institute for regenerative medicine at the texas a&m health science center this research was supported by funds from the national institute of arthritis and musculoskeletal and skin diseases of the national institutes of health
reaching for something on the top shelf at the grocery store or brushing one's teeth before bed are tasks many people can do without much thought but performing these same tasks as an upper limb amputee using a prosthetic device can require a lot more mental effort machine learning algorithms and computational models can provide insight into the mental demand placed on individuals using prosthetics dr maryam zahabi and her team are using these models to improve the current interface in prosthetic devices by studying prosthetics that use an electromyography-based human-machine interface
electromyography (emg) is a technique that records the electrical activity in muscles this electrical activity generates signals that trigger the interface which translates them into a unique pattern of commands these commands allow users to move their prosthetic devices there are over 100 000 people with upper limb amputations in the united states zahabi said currently there is very little guidance on which features in emg-based human-machine interfaces are helpful in reducing the cognitive load of patients while performing different tasks testing different interface prototypes through virtual reality and driving simulations will allow researchers to provide guidance to engineers creating these interfaces this will lead to better prosthetics for amputees and other technological advances using emg-based assistive human-machine interfaces this research is a collaboration between texas a&m north carolina state university and the university of florida and is supported by the national science foundation
the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university installed a new driving simulator to use in research pertaining to driving autonomous vehicles and innovative research like zahabis it is a one-of-a-kind feature on campus that can be driven manually or autonomously with a 270-degree field of vision due to the many different types of research that might require a driving simulator interdisciplinary teamwork is almost inherent in any project that incorporates this technology
with a touch of inspiration from macgyver texas a&m university researchers have developed a way to make medical protective gear from readily available materials to construct desperately needed personal protection masks for medical personnel who have seen a depletion of resources as the number of covid-19 cases increases dr john criscione a texas a&m professor in the department of biomedical engineering and a johns hopkins-educated medical doctor said he and his colleagues are investigating a low-technology solution to a growing problem and have figured out a way to build medical masks with materials such as air-conditioning filters sheer curtains staples and stretchable cords if the gap between supply and demand continues to worsen and particularly our emergency medical colleagues are forced to use do-it-yourself masks we want them to have technical guidance as they make their choices of materials and construction criscione said we see this as our selfless service responsibility to the general public as aggies and we are here to help
the project began after emergency room physicians asked criscione to explore potential solutions in case masks became unavailable the prototype never was intended to join the supply chain of approved personal protective equipment or personal protective equipment criscione said rather the aggie masks should be reserved for worst-case scenarios where overwhelmed hospitals have no protective masks to use for life-saving procedures
criscione and his team will be quantitatively testing do-it-yourself masks in the coming days and will continue their efforts to create a mask that has features similar to the n95 respirator which is capable of filtering 95% of airborne particles including viruses (surgical masks cannot block as much) another group at texas a&ms college of engineering is working on options to produce similar personal protective masks using 3d printers
objects around us from everyday utensils to touch screens are made of a blend of ingredients that can include a variety of metals and nonmetals although these synthetic materials have been engineered for strength and durability with time they can gradually weaken and in extreme cases crack particularly if subjected to constant physical stress levi mcclenny a doctoral candidate in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and a recipient of the data-enabled discovery and design of energy materials (d3em) fellowship is training artificial intelligence to accurately predict which man-made materials are more likely to develop cracks or break over time having an automated way to determine if and when materials will break is one of mcclennys doctoral goals when his computer algorithm is fully developed mcclenny's software will identify applications in designing more sophisticated smart vehicles these futuristic automobiles he says will be able to work out their overall states of deterioration in real-time by constantly monitoring the atomic structure and composition of their different vehicular components
mcclenny who incidentally is also a blackhawk pilot in the united states army reserves explained that his research has important uses within the military like all vehicles those used by the army such as tanks and planes are also composed of many parts each made up of a different mix of elements consequently different components are at different stages of deterioration a vehicle-installed software that can predict when breakages will occur can alert drivers or pilots to take preemptive steps to avoid future damage by gaining a deeper knowledge of which materials are more prone to breakage and why mcclenny hopes eventually to design new materials whose microscopic properties have been slightly tweaked to have desirable qualities like higher strength better electrical conductivity and superior flexibility
the texas a&m university systems george h w bush combat development complex (bcdc) under construction at the rellis campus is the result of a partnership with the army futures command the bcdc will bring together academic researchers the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of various national security initiatives
with the millions of bacteria that naturally exit in the environment and the many more that can be engineered for biological warfare the need to recognize whether a bacterium is potentially harmful is ever-increasing to rapidly identify different bacteria that exist in a given sample dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is developing a microfluidic device a type of microchip that can classify microorganisms as safe or unsafe within a span of minutes which could otherwise take days or even longer with current methods for this ambitious project han and his collaborators at the texas a&m college of medicine have received a $15 million defense advanced research projects agency grant to determine the virulence of bacteria hans device will screen the microbes for five-10 criteria that include toxin production skin penetrability and resistance to antibiotics furthermore his device is small and portable making it handy for on-site measurements of bacteria present in soil or water thinking ahead han is also partnering with dr arun jayaraman the ray b nesbitt professor of chemical engineering at texas a&m to find ways to grow bacteria in a laboratory particularly for those microbes that are novel or too few in number in a sample in this way information about these unfamiliar bacteria can be incorporated into the microfluidic technology so that the device can rapidly identify these bacterial strains if encountered again han notes that his tiny bacteria identification system will benefit both military personnel who often find themselves in unknown foreign environments and the general population who are exposed to a myriad of existing and emerging infectious diseases
while han develops the microchip dr james samuel (pi) and dr paul de figueiredo (co-pi) from the department of microbial pathogenesis and immunology in the texas a&m college of medicine will look at the microbial pathogens to determine what aspects of their harmfulness to humans or animals can be tested rapidly using about five to 10 different criteria
electrical power outages commonly are caused by falling trees that tear down lines or failures of devices such as clamps switches conductors and connectors the devices can deteriorate over weeks or months impacting electrical currents in small ways before actual failures perhaps triggered by adverse weather conditions like high winds utilities representatives have long recognized that something new is needed given the nations aging infrastructure distribution fault anticipation (dfa) a new technology developed at texas a&m university by a research team led by dr b don russell and dr carl benner answers this need dfa can help electric utilities keep the lights on and prevent horrific wildfires from spreading across the globe this one-of-a-kind hardware and software system can diagnose problems on utility lines before outages darken neighborhoods or power failures spark wildfires
utility systems today operate like my 1950s chevy russell said they have some fuses and breakers and things but they really dont have anything diagnostic they dont have that computer under the hood telling them whats about to go wrong dfa interprets variations in electrical currents on utility circuits caused by deteriorating equipment it continuously monitors currents and applies its algorithms to detect and report abnormalities for investigation and repair before they cause outages or fires electric power companies have nothing else like it not only does dfa improve reliability and help prevent fires it could potentially give california utilities a tool to limit preemptive power outages such as those endured by millions of californians last fall the utilities turned off the lights based only on dry conditions and weather forecasts utilities needed a crystal ball something telling them which circuit is going to start a fire tomorrow because it is already unhealthy said russell who has also testified before the us senate energy and natural resources committee to explain this technologys advantages dfa is that crystal ball
engineers at texas a&m developed dfa over 20 years of research and testing at more than a dozen utilities across the nation including texas utilities such as pedernales electric cooperative mid-south synergy and bluebonnet electric cooperative dfa is now being tested by two of californias biggest utilities pacific gas & electric and southern california edison where utilities have been linked to some of the most destructive wildfires ever texas a&m researchers also are working on tests with utilities in new zealand the united kingdom and australia
major hospitals in the houston area reached out to the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and texas a&m university to determine if researchers and staff could use their rapid manufacturing expertise to assist with the shortage of medical devices and personal protective equipment (ppe) as the nation responds to the unprecedented emergency that is the covid-19 pandemic texas a&m engineering has 21 000 students but now that theyre not on campus weve converted some of our spaces like the susu and mark a fischer 72 engineering design center into manufacturing facilities said dr yossef elabd associate dean for research and chemical engineering professor elabd who is leading texas a&ms covid-19 rapid response team added we now have a system in place to produce face shields and diffusers for metered dose inhalers and were continually producing ppe every day and delivering to hospitals
as an america makes satellite center tees boasts one of the largest concentrations of core manufacturing subject matter experts in the country the knowledge base is multidisciplinary comprised of representatives from various colleges within texas a&m and the texas a&m university system we have advanced manufacturing and additive manufacturing capabilities to support us in our learning objectives and to help us in productivity and in reducing costs said rob gorham executive director of manufacturing initiatives at tees gorham elaborated that it is tees and texas a&ms unique approach placing service above self that sets them apart from their peers and enables them to rapidly deploy solutions across the state and nation in order to solve some of the worlds hardest problems
manufacturing anything requires diversity in approach gorham continued we have to focus not just on making a functional solution but a functional solution that works and is safe to use by the many people depending on our answers texas a&m as a tier one university has all of that in-house ordinarily a university campus where the tees headquarters is located would not be manufacturing medical devices and delivering them directly to hospitals but these unusual times have called for a new way of doing things internal staff and legal teams are executing agreements in a matter of hours or daysinstead of monthsin order to meet urgent demands from medical professionals this situation highlighted a lot of discussions that we probably were not having between physicians at hospitals and a lot of engineers at texas a&m said elabd once the nation overcomes covid-19 i look forward to new directions for research informed by our recently developed working relationship with texas hospitals
tees has partnered with america makes the national additive manufacturing innovation institute to establish an america makes satellite center on the campus of texas a&m in college station america makes is the countrys leading collaborative partner in additive manufacturing and 3d-printing technology research commercialization and education partnering with america makes positions tees to become a national leader in advanced manufacturing and also facilitates tees relationship with the department of defense department of energy and department of commerce three federal entities that are critical to aiding in the security of americas manufacturing ecosystem
the texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) is hosting its annual competition completely online this year to protect competitors judges and staff during the covid-19 pandemic sixteen semifinalists and eight alternates for the 2020 competition will compete may 14 for hundreds of thousands in startup funds during online rounds of pitch competitions and judging these are unprecedented times for the nation and its important for us to not only focus on the health and safety of our participants and judges but also to support the economic health of texas during this time said chris scotti entrepreneur-in-residence for the texas a&m engineering experiment station and chair of the competition these startups are not only providing the opportunity to support the local and state economies but their ideas have the potential to improve the health and well-being of our citizens and the environment it was important to us and to them to hold this years event since most of the pre-event judging takes place virtually anyway it was a logical progression to host all of it online scotti said aimed at promoting the commercialization of emerging technology to the marketplace tnvc recognizes engineering- and science-based technology companies with high-growth potential and provides seed funding to help them take their ideas to market this years competitors come from a wide spectrum of fields including health care it/software digital health transportation and clean energy technology these semifinalists have undergone a rigorous screening due diligence and a coaching process that identified them as top prospects from a pool of 87 applicants the awards will allow the deep technology startups that receive them to create economic impact and job growth see the complete list of semifinalists and alternates as well as their home cities at the tnvc website
the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the texas a&m university system along with a growing number of sponsors are working with the entrepreneurial ecosystem throughout the state to ensure todays innovative ideas become a reality through the texas a&m new ventures competition
as texas a&m engineering finds innovative ways to help the community deal with the covid-19 pandemic the team at the susu and mark a fischer '72 engineering design center (fedc) in the zachry engineering education complex is working around the clock to make those solutions a reality the fedcs skeleton crew of essential research members kicked off a project last week to provide baylor college of medicine in houston with 3 000 face shields to help protect its medical workers while they treat sick patients starting with a face shield design made publicly available by the georgia institute of technology the fedc team modified the design to work with the materials they had available the main challenge for completing the face shield designessentially a resizable headband with a curved plastic sheet covering the users full facewas in finding a way to use a thicker plastic than is typically utilized
dr david staack director of engineering laboratory instruction said due to supply shortages staff technicians had to find a way to make the design work with the materials they had on-handincluding supplies he had available in his research lab as well as those able to be sourced from the college of architecture typically during this time of year the design center would be operating at full capacity helping students complete their senior design projects with all classes going online in march due to covid-19 jim wilson general manager of the fedc said he and his team are glad to have found another way to be of service during these trying times we miss the students but what were doing right now we know is helping a lot of people wilson said the covid-19 projects are our top priority right now
the fedc team also includes technical laboratory coordinators adam farmer and todd williams as well as nathan panak cody ricther brey caraway richard mccalley iran ramirez and tobias gualandri you see all kinds of stuff online and on tv of people trying to help farmer said for us to be able to do something and know that what were doing is going to people who are doing more good than we are to help them is a happy feeling the fedc staffs collective effort to bring these impactful projects to fruition is part of a wider texas a&m community coming togetherfrom loading dock attendants to members of the legal teamto make sure these critical pieces of equipment make it to those in need
the susu and mark a fischer '72 engineering design center is an exclusive academic makerspace and design center that focuses on learning designing and building through partnerships with industry and non-profit sponsors the center is an environment where concepts become solutions to real-world problems and student teams come together to build new prototypes acquire new skills and develop new relationships it is supported with differential tuition funds and it is open to engineering undergraduate students
"in light of the emergence and spread of covid-19 researchers across many disciplines are using their expertise to address these and future pandemics and texas a&m university urban resilience lab researchers are joining the global effortdr ali mostafavi assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering recently received a grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to better understand predict and effectively respond to the risk of infectious disease outbreaks in urban areasmy urban resilience lab has been investigating the robustness and resilience of urban systems in the face of different disruptions such as floods earthquakes and wildfires urban resilience to pandemics is a relatively under-studied dimension for us and other researchers in the field "" mostafavi said ""we are honored to receive this award from the nsf to advance the fundamental understanding and methods in this area in this project we will harness urban-scale big data and create novel artificial intelligence (ai) and data-driven network science models to help better monitor and predict hidden pandemic spread riskscovid-19 outbreaks have had dire societal and economic impacts across the globe and its spread has become a major societal threat in the united states the majority of epidemic spread models however do not adequately consider the tremendous uncertainty associated with human response behaviors (both populations and individual actors) and anxiety in urban system supply chains during an epidemic outbreakmostafavi and his team will analyze the data through spatial modeling network analysis and machine learning techniques to reveal hidden pandemic spread risks in urban areas the outcomes will suggest new ways for better prediction of pandemics and offer new insights on ways to conduct urban-scale surveillance of epidemic spread risks the findings will inform strategies and possible data-driven tools and methods to prevent help contain and mitigate the effects of future epidemics and pandemics"
the urban resilience networks and informatics lab focuses on creating transformative solutions for addressing the grand challenges pertaining to the nexus of humans disasters and infrastructure systems our urban resilience lab at texas a&m is uniquely positioned to undertake this work in addition to our expertise in ai and complex urban networks we also have close collaboration with multiple local and state agencies and technology companies mostafavi said in the initial stage our goal is to disseminate data and findings to help agencies contain the pandemic and its impacts in the next stage we will make our computational data-centric models available as open-source tools to help predict and mitigate future epidemic outbreaks more proactively and effectively
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) edge program is known for providing professional education reflective of the ever-changing needs of the world and there has never been a more ever-changing time than now to meet the needs of those searching for professional education opportunities tees edge has several fully online options available we know there are some who are looking for professional education while working from home said dr cindy lawley assistant vice chancellor for academic and outreach programs we also anticipate that as organizations recover from the pandemics economic impact over the next several months their line items for business travel may also be impacted when taking any of our online offerings participants will get the same high-quality experience they have come to expect from texas a&m engineering while eliminating the costs associated with traveling some online offerings are independent and self-paced while others are instructor-led in real-time courses specifically for the pharmaceutical and nuclear industries are available now registration is also open for lean six sigma yellow belt short courses and collegiate test preparation more courses are currently under development for an online launch including cyber-leader security and cyber-leader network enterprise basics project controls and project management all fully online offerings are available on the tees edge website
texas a&m university through its unique engineering medicine (enmed) partnership with houston methodist hospital is stepping up to help the health care system keep up with the demand for medical supplies brought on by the increasing number of confirmed and suspected covid-19 cases a team led by dr michael r moreno has already delivered 200 3d-printed diffusers for metered dose inhalers (mdi) to the houston hospital and stands ready to produce more if needed one of the most powerful aspects of the project is that it came from direct communication with doctors who at the forefront of this crisis are identifying emerging unanticipated needs
the spacer or diffuser that we created will allow the doctors to use metered dose inhalers to treat diagnosed and suspected covid-19 patients who are not yet in need of ventilator therapy without using nebulizers that may aerosolize the virus moreno said and this is important because if this early stage intervention is effective then it is possible that these patients may recover before reaching that critical point where ventilator therapy is required inhalers are the preferred method of delivery for bronchodilator drugs with confirmed and potential covid-19 patients the inhaler devices require precise timing of inhalation for proper delivery to the lungs which is something moreno said even experienced users like himself can find challenging with the help of a diffuser patients are better able to get more of the medication into their lungs
these spacers work like diffusers and allow the patient more time to draw the entire dose of medication into their lungs moreno said and when you're suffering from respiratory illness this may be very important dan metzen system director of pharmacy services at houston methodist said diffusers are currently in short supply due to the increased use of inhalers for both confirmed and suspected covid-19 patients leaving the hospital itself with a limited supply
metzen said nebulizers could also be used to administer the medication but metered dose inhalers are preferred due to a concern that nebulizers used by patients with covid-19 in the hospital could spread the virus although the concept being utilized for the diffusers is not new this is among the first times it has been locally 3d printed and delivered on this scale anticipating that this shortage is likely not unique to houston methodist moreno and his team are making the stereolithography (stl) file for the 3d-printable design publicly available at no cost additionally the team has designed an alternate smaller 3d-printable device designed for areas that may be more resource limited this device is essentially an inhaler interface that allows one to use a common plastic water bottle as the diffuser chamber
houston methodist has a partnership with the texas a&m college of medicine and college of engineering through the enmed program an integrated educational and research medical program with a focus on innovation dr roderic pettigrew executive dean of enmed said this rapid response by moreno and his team to develop a use-inspired solution in the 3d printed diffuser serves as a perfect example of the programs concept in action engineers are great at solving problems that benefit society and the health care delivery system right now is very much in need of help with problem solving as we struggle with this pandemic and all of its associated challenges pettigrew said enmed has risen to the occasion right here in houston to serve people in need were working with our colleagues at houston methodist hospital in order to devise practical solutions to real problems on the front lines of treating covid-19 patients
twelve research projects have been chosen for funding as part of the texas a&m university system national laboratories offices multi-element program to increase engagement between researchers from the a&m system and the los alamos national laboratory (lanl) researchers could apply for funding in two different categories: developmental fellowships and research projects developmental fellowships are designed to formally initiate a research project between a&m system faculty and lanl researchers who have already identified a mutual interest this is a one-year proposal submitted annually each fall research projects are designed for a&m system researchers who have mature ties with lanl collaborators and have identified research topics suitable for a joint effort and joint funding from the a&m system and lanl these are up to four-year awards and proposals are accepted annually each fall the following funded proposals were selected after undergoing a review process that involved numerous technical experts from the a&m system and lanl research projects swaroop darbha j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering; and harsha nagarajan lanlmodeling and discrete optimization algorithms for robust complex networks ibrahim karaman amine benzerga and alan needleman department of materials science and engineering; and ricardo lebensohn lanldesign of novel thermo-mechanical processing approaches using inverse optimization for light-weighting rupak mahapatra department of physics and astronomy; and richard van de water steven elliott william louis and rajan gupta lanllos alamos a&m dark-matter and neutrino alliance narasimha reddy department of electrical and computer engineering; and brad settlemyer and gary grider lanlkey-value storage systems for hpc lin shao and frank garner department of nuclear engineering; and stuart a maloy lanladvanced reactor structural materials under extreme radiation conditions sherry yennello lauren (heilborn) mcintosh and evgeny tereshatov cyclotron institute; and jonathan d burns nuclear education and science center; eva birnbaum michael fassbender etienne vermeulen and stosh kozimor lanlproduction of radioisotopes (at-211 + tb-149) for cancer therapy developmental fellowships karim ahmed department of nuclear engineering (pi); and anders david ragnar andersson lanlquantitative mesoscale modeling of high burn-up structure (hbs) formation and evolution in uo2 carlos bertulani texas a&m university-commerce department of physics and astronomy (pi); and eddy timmermans lanlstudy of dilute gas bose_einstein condensates matthias katzfuss department of statistics (pi); and earl lawrence lanlscalable gaussian-process methods for the analysis of computer experiments michael nippe department of chemistry (pi); and stosh kozimor lanlcorrelating f-block covalency with magnetic exchange in actinide-lanthanide heterometallics: towards highly anisotropic 5f-4f spin systems sarah wolff department of industrial and systems engineering (pi); and don brown samantha lawrence and adam wachtor lanlcharacterizing components from the directed energy deposition (ded) additive manufacturing process for new materials yu xuan (kelvin) xie department of materials science and engineering (pi); and arul kumar mariyappan lanlcharacterizing understanding and predicting the deformation mechanisms of metallic systems
today the texas a&m university system announced the name of its landmark five-acre campus in houston texas at the prominent intersection of holcombe blvd and main st near the texas medical center setting a new standard for collaboration in engineering medicine research and education is the first all-new mixed-use campus for the texas a&m system in houston: texas a&m innovation plaza the texas a&m system initiated the new campus by acquiring and renovating an 18-story office building at 1020 holcombe to be the home for enmed a unique two-degree program that provides students the chance to earn a masters degree in engineering from texas a&m university and a medical degree from the texas a&m college of medicine the enmed building will open later this year complementing the academic research discovery and innovation missions of the enmed program texas a&m innovation plaza will provide a welcoming secure and vibrant experience to the campus population and visitors alike with generous green spaces and lifestyle amenities not commonly found in the texas medical center area with the groundbreaking scheduled in late 2020 the a&m systems public-private partnership (p3) developer is bringing an additional investment of $401 million to fulfill unmet needs with two complementary towers totaling an additional 19 million square feet enmed is just the first example of innovation that the texas a&m system intends to bring to the texas a&m innovation plaza said chancellor john sharp we are excited to have such a visible location in the texas medical center scheduled to be delivered in june 2022 is a 19-story 714-bed student housing tower that will overlook a scenic plaza flanked by a large garage with retail and dining as well as convenient affordable parking for 2 800 vehicles texas a&m medical students and prairie view a&m university nursing students will be given priority for housing but students from other institutions could fill open slots if available scheduled to be delivered in january 2024 is a 17-story 515 000-square-foot integrated medical building that will be built atop the 13-story parking structure with generous efficient floorplates and robust building technologies this integrated medical building will be ideally suited for medical clinical biomedical tech and office use accessible via main st holcombe blvd and fannin st texas a&m innovation plaza is also adjacent to the metro texas medical center station providing convenient connectivity via bus and light rail service to the texas medical center museum district and downtown houston the developer for the p3 projects is medistar corporation american triple i partners founded by texas a&m alum henry cisneros is part of the financing team
the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $63 billion the system is a statewide network of 11 universities; a comprehensive health science center; eight state agencies including the texas division of emergency management; and the rellis campus the texas a&m system educates more than 151 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year system-wide research and development expenditures exceeded $1 billion in fy 2019 and helped drive the states economy
innovation was on full display this week at the sixth annual texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) hosted by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) due to safety concerns amid the covid-19 pandemic organizers shifted the event to a virtual platform dr albert huangs company allotrope medical took home the top $50 000 prize for the stimsite technology which is a smooth muscle stimulation technology that allows surgeons to rapidly and safely identify critical tissue structures like the ureter during surgery winning this years tnvc competition is truly the highlight of 2020 for us not only will the award allow us to continue our rapid advancements and commercialization but it has increased our visibility within the startup ecosystem in texas and beyond huang said certainly this years competition was different by necessity but thanks to the hard work of tnvc the connections interactivity and overall flow of the event over the course of two days were seamless during these uncertain times this competition was one of the rare moments where the startup community can join together from afar to support one another and see the amazing things we are all doing even though many of us are working from home innovation doesnt stop we just all have to adapt he said despite having to move everything pretty quickly over to a fully online format this year we had a tremendous group of startups competing it was important to us and to them to hold this years event said chris scotti entrepreneur-in-residence for tees and chair of the competition these startups are not only providing the opportunity to support the local and state economies but their ideas have the potential to improve the health and well-being of our citizens and the environment the prize pool for this years competition was nearly $400 000 in cash and in-kind services the full list of winners includes: 1st – $50 000 – allotrope medical 2nd – $35 000 – sensytec 3rd – $25 000 – polyvascular 4th – $15 000 – bezoar laboratories llc 5th – $10 000 – bondwell technologies 6th – $5 000 – intelligent nanofiber elevator pitch competition: 1st - $5 000 – veradermics 2nd - $4 000 – novothelium 3rd - $3 000 – allosense inc 4th - $2 000 – feel the color 5th - $1 000 – hipr innovation inc additional prizes: southwest pediatric device prize – hipr and veradermics aggie angel network investment prize – allotrope medical innovators legal – endpoint security inc and polyvascular paragon innovations prize – allosense inc thomas | horstemeyer ip legal services – sensytec and xebec inc amerra visualization services prize – em device lab inc schwegman lundberg and woessner ip legal services prize – texpower hollinden marketing and strategists services prize – novothelium and polyvascular biotex investment prize – em device lab inc axle-box services prize – bezoar laboratories llc and sensytec brazos valley economic development corporation launch prize – bezoar laboratories llc
simple toys to custom prosthetic parts are made from plastic which is also a popular 3d printing material however these printed parts are mechanically weak a flaw caused by the imperfect bonding between the individual printed layers that make up 3d-printed parts researchers at texas a&m university in collaboration with scientists from essentium inc have now developed the technology needed to overcome 3d printings weak spot by integrating plasma science and carbon nanotube technology into standard 3d printing the researchers welded adjacent printed layers more effectively increasing the overall reliability of the final part finding a way to remedy the inadequate bonding between printed layers has been an ongoing quest in the 3d-printing field said dr micah green associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering we have now developed a sophisticated technology that can bolster welding between these layers all while printing the 3d part a full description of their findings is described in the february issue of the journal nano letters plastics are commonly used for extrusion 3d printing known technically as fused-deposition modeling in this technique molten plastic is squeezed out of a nozzle that prints parts layer by layer as the printed layers cool they fuse to one another to create the final 3d part however studies show that these layers join imperfectly; printed parts are weaker than identical parts made by injection molding where melted plastics simply assume the shape of a preset mold upon cooling to join these interfaces more thoroughly additional heating is required but heating printed parts using something akin to an oven has a major drawback if you put something in an oven it's going to heat everything so a 3d-printed part can warp and melt losing its shape green said what we really needed was some way to heat only the interfaces between printed layers and not the whole part to promote inter-layer bonding the team turned to carbon nanotubes since these carbon particles heat in response to electrical currents the researchers coated the surface of each printed layer with these nanomaterials similar to the heating effect of microwaves on food the team found that these carbon nanotube coatings can be heated using electric currents allowing the printed layers to bond together when the researchers tested the strength of 3d-printed parts using their new technology they found that their strength was comparable to injection-molded parts this work is supported by funds from the national science foundation
the primary author of this research is dr c brandon sweeney a former texas a&m materials science and engineering student in greens laboratory he is the head of research and development and co-founder at essentium inc the research team also collaborated with dr david staack associate professor in the j mike walker ‘66 department of mechanical engineering to generate a beam of charged air particles or plasma that could carry an electrical charge to the surface of 3d printed parts to allow electric currents to pass through printed parts heating the nanotubes and welding the layers together
spoiling foods souring wine and worsening wounds have a common culprit a process called oxidation although the ill effects of these chemical reactions can be curtailed by the action of antioxidants creating a sturdy platform capable of providing prolonged antioxidant activity is an ongoing challenge researchers at texas a&m university might have solved this problem with their new antioxidant mats made from an intertwined network of ultra-fine strands of a polymer and an antioxidant found in red wine the researchers said these mats are strong stable and capable of delivering antioxidant activity for prolonged periods of time our innovation is that we have fine-tuned the steps needed to spin defect-free ultra-microscopic fibers for making high-performing antioxidant mats said adwait gaikwad a graduate student in dr svetlana sukhishvilis laboratory in the college of engineering each fiber is intermolecularly linked to several antioxidant molecules and so the final mat which is made of millions and millions of such fibers has enhanced antioxidant functionality a description of their study is in the february issue of the journal acs applied materials & interfaces although oxidation is a common natural phenomenon left unchecked this chemical reaction can be detrimental for example in alcoholic beverages too much oxidation leads to the formation of acetaldehyde from alcohol altering the drinks taste color and aroma in the body oxidative stress causes a buildup of free radicals that can harm healthy cells and body tissue
however oxidative reactions can be kept in control by the action of antioxidants these compounds readily combine with ambient oxygen or donate electrons to neutralize charged radicals of the many antioxidants a molecule found in red wine called tannic acid is particularly attractive because it is also antibacterial and antiviral the researchers said these remarkable properties are due to the presence of groupings of atoms called polyphenols within tannic acids molecular structure in past studies antioxidants were blended into synthetic mats made by mixing a polymer and antioxidants together then flattening them into a sheet but these mats have lower functionality because the surface area for antioxidant activity is limited to increase the surface area for antioxidant activity the researchers created an antioxidant mesh made with ultrafine fibers of polymer and tannic acid thus each strand of this mesh-like mat could contribute to antioxidant activity we have created antioxidant mats with a high surface area robust mechanical properties and the ability to provide long-term antioxidant protection said gaikwad also the release of tannic acid is on-demand the hydrogen bonds hold the antioxidants in the material until there is an external stimulus like ph these properties make our mats suitable for diverse applications from bandages for wound-healing to inner linings of containers for food storage this work is also supported by the national science foundation
dr roderic i pettigrew a phd and md who is the robert a welch professor in the college of medicine and professor of biomedical engineering in the college of engineering at texas a&m university has been elected into the american academy of arts and sciences the honorific academy one of the nations oldest was founded in 1780 by john adams george washington thomas jefferson and benjamin franklin to recognize remarkable people working to advance the public good members are categorized into five classes; however pettigrew has joined under the prestigious new interclass category which identifies members recognized in more than one class i have always been drawn to the intersection and convergence of the physical sciences life sciences and engineering said pettigrew who also spent 15 years as the founding director of the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering my ultimate research goal is to eliminate heart attacks and strokes the way to do that is by integrating a range of disciplinary techniques that is through transdisciplinary research pettigrew hopes to develop a beyond the state of the art mri system able to see the wall of the coronary artery in fine detail pushing the limits of mri physics to the maximum point that is tolerated by the human body such a scanner which could help eliminate heart attacks would be unique in the world he said pettigrew is also collaborating with dr john cooke at houston methodist hospital to study the problem of cell aging and its stimulation of atherosclerosis using a human progeria model we are studying the behavior of endothelial cells at the cellular and molecular level he explained this includes understanding the biomechanics of cells the impact of aging at the cellular level and the impact of molecular therapies such as delivering the gene that codes for telomere length we are studying the mechanogenomics of rapidly aging cells and the response to molecular therapies telomeres are protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that protect against the effects of cell aging or cell senescence every time cells divide and chromosomes get reproduced they lose some protective coating defects resulting from the protective caps wearing away over time can cause cellular dysfunction identifying how to restore that coating can return cells to a more functional state given that one of the major factors leading to heart disease is cell senescence pettigrew is interested in understanding and modulating this process through investigating progeria cells and why they behave differently pettigrew also serves as executive dean for the engineering medicine (enmed) collaboration between texas a&m and houston methodist hospital in which students study a blended engineering and medicine curriculum to earn both md and me degrees in only four years enmed has emerged from a movement that recognizes the inherent value in merging engineering and medicine with the biological and physical sciences pettigrew said traditionally weve separated these areas as individual disciplines but in life there are no boundaries enmed graduates called physicianeers will be conceptually fluent in multiple scientific languages such as engineering and medicine so that they better understand life processes and are trained to innovate and invent solutions across the whole health care landscape the goal is to transform the health care ecosystem so that we all have good health through the entirety of our lives said pettigrew since its founding 240 years ago the american academy of arts and sciences has welcomed many distinguished members that span across history and include exceptional names such as john f kennedy martin luther king jr toni morrison charles darwin albert einstein winston churchill akira kurosawa and nelson mandela pettigrew will join their ranks in cambridge massachusetts on friday oct 9
a typical nuclear reactor uses only a small fraction of its fuel rod to produce power before the energy-generating reaction naturally terminates what is left behind is an assortment of radioactive elements including unused fuel that are disposed of as nuclear waste in the united states although certain elements recycled from waste can be used for powering newer generations of nuclear reactors extracting leftover fuel in a way that prevents possible misuse is an ongoing challenge texas a&m engineering researchers have devised a simple proliferation-resistant approach for separating out different components of nuclear waste the prescribed one-step chemical reaction described in the february issue of the journal industrial & engineering chemistry research resulted in the formation of crystals containing all of the leftover nuclear fuel elements distributed uniformly the simplicity of their recycling approach also makes the translation from lab bench to industry feasible
our recycling strategy can be easily integrated into a chemical flow sheet for industrial-scale implementation said dr jonathan burns research scientist in the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear engineering and science center in other words the reaction can be repeated multiple times to maximize fuel recovery yield and further reduce radioactive nuclear waste this simplified single-step process is also proliferation-resistant since plutonium is not isolated but incorporated within the uranium crystals in addition to addressing the fuel recycling problem and reducing proliferation risk said burns our strategy will drastically reduce nuclear waste to just the fission products whose radioactivity is hundreds rather than hundreds of thousands of years
the basis of energy production in nuclear reactors is thermonuclear fission in this reaction a heavy nucleus usually uranium when hit by subatomic particles called neutrons becomes unstable and tears apart into smaller lighter elements however uranium can absorb neutrons and get progressively heavier to form elements like neptunium plutonium and americium before once again splitting and releasing energy over time these fission reactions lead to a buildup of lighter elements in the nuclear reactor but roughly half of these fission products are deemed neutron poisonsthey also absorb neutrons just like used nuclear fuel leaving fewer for the fission reaction eventually bringing the energy production to a halt hence used fuel rods contain fission products leftover uranium and small quantities of plutonium neptunium and americium currently these items are collectively considered nuclear waste in the united states and are destined to be stowed away in underground repositories because of their high radioactivity
the texas a&m university system national laboratories office (nlo) and los alamos national laboratory have formed a collaborative research effort to make extremely large data sets indexable and more easily searchable we are excited to be partnering with our colleagues at texas a&m on this important and potentially game-changing research this collaboration leverages extreme strengths in data management research from both our organizations said gary grider division leader for high performance computing at los alamos fine-grain annotation of scientific data sets composed of trillions of mesh cells or particles is critical in making extremely large data sets indexable and more easily searchable typical multi-dimensional indexes analyze only the most interesting queries and typically require multiple passes over extremely large data sets and multiple days of dedicated processing time we expect this collaboration to lead to the development of novel storage systems that will address high performance computing needs at the national labs said narasimha reddy jw runyon professor in electrical and computer engineering in the college of engineering at texas a&m university an efficient and resilient key-value interface with hardware support to accelerate fundamental operations offers significant promise to make the enormous data sets generated by large-scale multi-physics simulations as well as machine learning model training and inferencing available for efficient analysis and provides scientists with powerful tools for both analyzing and understanding extreme-scale simulation data sets further it protects data for long-term storage and enables efficient queries for data analysis at scale fine-grained annotation of scientific data sets is critical to enabling scientists to extract insight and understanding from the massive simulations we perform at los alamos the key-value research we are engaged in with texas a&m is a major element in unlocking that insight and accelerating the pace of scientific discovery said brad settlemyer senior scientist in the high-performance computing design group at los alamos this collaboration focuses on exploiting potential upcoming key-value flash devices to enable much more rapid analysis and insights of large data sets it is based on recent work by texas a&m in the area of hardware-assisted erasure protection for key-value stores it is an excellent demonstration of utilization of processing power near/on storage devices to provide additional functionality and more powerful interfaces to applications this collaboration is jointly sponsored by the efficient mission centric computing consortium (emc3) and the nlo in this consortium high performance computing (hpc) consumer organizations researchers and system developers can collaborate together to attack this challenging problem of higher efficiency extreme scale mission-centric computing the hpc consumer base along with national and international hpc component and system developers are encouraged to join emc3 visit lanl's emc3 website for news and additional information about these efforts
dr le xie a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and assistant director of energy digitization at the texas a&m energy institute is working with his research team to collaborate on a project to release a first-of-its-kind cross-domain open-access data hub to track the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on electricity markets in the usthe coronavirus disease-electricity market data aggregation+ (covid-emda+) integrates cross domains of data including the electricity sector public health covid-19 case data weather data cellular phone location data and satellite imaging data into a compact format and is updated daily to capture the evolving dynamicsthis data hub provides a unique opportunity for a data-driven scientific approach to tracking and measuring the short-run impacts of covid-19 on the power sector and it also supports other interdisciplinary research xie saidthere is still uncertainty on how the gradual reopening of states will impact the electricity sector due to social distancing protocols and many americans working from home there has been a significant change in electricity consumption the covid-emda+ tool allows xie's research team to analyze the scope of this change and better assess how to move forwardthe goal of this research is to provide a timely open-access data resource accompanied by rigorous analysis to aid the power community in making scientifically informed decisions in the current moment
the texas a&m energy institute pursues and supports new approaches for multi-disciplinary energy research education and external partnerships these approaches cross departmental and college boundaries and address all facets of the energy landscape that naturally connect engineering sciences technologies economics law and policy decisions
the united states army research laboratory is lending support to a texas a&m university research project investigating potential improvement of ballistic performance of armor materials the project led by dr justin wilkerson assistant professor and james j cain 51 faculty fellow ii in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering focuses on identifying what damaging effects could be caused by particular flaws known as vacancies in the atomic structure of aluminum wilkersons research paper on the topic evolving structure-property relationships in metals with nonequilibrium concentrations of vacancies was recently featured on the cover of the journal of applied physics the paper was co-authored with wilkersons former postdoctoral advisee dr sara adibi although similar research has been conducted by dr celia reina and coworkers from the california institute of technology wilkersons study delves deeper into the subject by calculating the effect of changes due to vacancies over time on the materials mechanical properties mechanical behavior of these materials could not be understood via the lattice kinetic monte carlo simulations alone which was what had been done prior to this said wilkerson to take the next step forward we made use of supercomputing facilities to conduct a suite of large-scale molecular dynamics simulations
atoms are arranged in a highly ordered pattern referred to as a crystal lattice and if an atom is missing from a perfect lattice structure this defect is called a vacancy at high temperatures the vacancies can come together forming vacancy clusters wilkerson said a large concentration of vacancies in a material may be generated under shock loading which could impact ballistic performance metrics including spall strength the effect of vacancies on the mechanical behavior of materials on short timescales such as microseconds has remained largely unexplored said wilkerson even on such short timescales we find that vacancies may also play a significant role in the high-temperature failure of metals subject to very high tensile pressures a prospective idea from the findings is that it may be possible to use this knowledge to improve the ballistic performance of next-generation armors for the us army now that we better understand the importance of this mechanism to ballistic performance the next step is to develop material processing strategies that slow vacancy production rates in shocked materials said wilkerson
the texas a&m university systems george h w bush combat development complex (bcdc) under construction at the rellis campus is the result of a partnership with the army futures command the bcdc will bring together academic researchers the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of various national security initiatives
a team of researchers led by the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is looking to help scientists combat the secondary effects of covid-19 using artificial intelligence (ai) by participating in an open challenge called ai cures the team is led by dr shuiwang ji principal investigator and associate professor in the department and includes students lei cai meng liu and limei wang hosted by the abdul latif jameel clinic for machine learning at the massachusetts institute of technology ai cures aims to contribute to the development of new antibiotics to fight emerging antibiotic-resistant bacteria through machine learning in a recent study published in the lancet scientists observed that a large number of nonsurviving adult patients who were severely ill with covid-19 developed a secondary bacterial pneumonia infection due to significantly depleted lung function new antibiotics are desperately needed to fight the emerging antibiotic-resistant bacteria that causes bacterial pneumonia but developing them can take several years and cost more than $1 billion the participating teams have been tasked with developing an ai model that can predict if a molecule will be positive or negative for bacterial pneumonia and then be used to identify new antibiotics jis team proposes using advanced deep learning and machine learning methods for graph neural networks to achieve this covid-19 is one of the most contagious pandemics weve experienced and it has resulted in a great loss of human life said ji developing new drugs can be an effective way to control the virus and researchers from all over the world have gotten involved to achieve this ai cures provides a platform that brings researchers together to develop ai tools for drug discovery and as computer scientists it is our honor to contribute to the development of a new drug our lab has accumulated many technologies to analyze the properties of molecules which can be helpful to this project
while data specific to covid-19 is still limited today the abdul latif jameel clinic for machine learning has released a new screening dataset and is reporting current results the ai cures challenge started in march and dr shuiwang ji's research team began work on the project in may their results are currently ranked first on the leaderboard
a grant to help train military service members in texas and north carolina for biopharmaceutical manufacturing careers has been approved by the national institute for innovation in manufacturing biopharmaceuticals (niimbl) the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and several educational and industry partners requested more than $400 000 for the initiative its one of 14 to be funded this year by niimbl as part of its project call 31 program dubbed military service members in biopharma manufacturing (msmbm) the initiative will provide targeted technical training to complement the leadership and other soft skills learned in the military it will help prepare a minimum of 50 service members veterans and military spouses for biopharma manufacturing jobs tees through its national center for therapeutics manufacturing (nctm) is the lead organization for msmbm as texas has a substantial military presence and will benefit directly from the program ncbiotech will lead marketing and outreach and help coordinate the efforts of project participants corporate partners pfizer and merck will connect service members to career opportunities in biopharmaceutical manufacturing both pharmaceutical companies have large manufacturing operations in the research triangle area four north carolina community colleges will develop course materials and provide technical training they include central carolina community college durham technical community college bionetwork at wake technical community college and gaston college nctm will do the same for texas participants military training instills a strong sense of responsibility professionalism dedication and the ability to successfully navigate demanding work environments said dr laura rowley director of life science economic development at ncbiotech we want to create a sustainable pathway to connect north carolinas growing biopharma manufacturing industry with these skilled professionals and we want to better enable service members to transition to a rewarding civilian career in a sector they may not have otherwise considered military veterans transitioning service members and military spouses represent a significant an underutilized talent pipeline for the biopharma manufacturing industry added jenny ligon nctm assistant director this project aims to elevate their preparedness for careers in biopharma by linking their readily transferable soft skills with targeted training niimbl is a public-private partnership funded through a $70 million cooperative agreement with the national institute of standards and technology in the us department of commerce it has the support of more than 150 members from industry academia and government and is headquartered at the university of delaware the organizations mission is to speed the pace of biopharmaceutical innovation develop standards to improve manufacturing know-how and help build a world-leading biopharmaceutical workforce project call 31 grants cover technology workforce development and the global health fund which niimbl established with help from the bill and melinda gates foundation to support technologies that cut the cost of biopharmaceutical manufacturing the total value of this years awards is approximately $10 million kelvin h lee niimbls director said the projects will add speed efficiency and potential savings to an industry that must always be prepared to move quickly new manufacturing technologies are crucial to bringing safe life-saving treatments to patients faster and now more than ever the biopharma industry is seeing an increased demand for skilled talent he added niimbl said $63 million has been invested in technology and workforce development projects since the institute was launched in 2017 this work is performed under financial assistance award 70nanb17h002 from the us department of commerce national institute of standards and technology
the national center for therapeutics manufacturing (nctm) is a first-of-its-kind multi-disciplinary workforce education institution and biopharmaceutical manufacturing center located at texas a&m university in college station texas the nctms workforce development mission is to provide education training and outreach programs to produce a highly skilled workforce for the vital us and global pharmaceutical industry
the federal government has reserved a high-tech biomanufacturing facility here for mass production of a covid-19 vaccine as part of a program discussed monday by president donald trump the new federal task order is reserving production capacity at one of the college station facilities to mass manufacture vaccines through the end of 2021 the order which supports operation warp speed is between the federal government and the texas a&m university systems center for innovation in advanced development and manufacturing (ciadm) the ciadm was developed in response to the h1n1 influenza pandemic as a subcontractor to the texas a&m system fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies texas (fdb) owns and operates three facilities built through the ciadm program they can be tapped for emergency use by the federal government fdb is slated to use the reserved capacity at one of the fdb facilities for the covid-19 vaccine candidate of novavax inc nvx-cov2373 valued at about $265 million the task order also will accelerate a planned expansion at the fdb facility by helping fund new equipment for use in the current pandemic and in future emergencies the texas a&m system is ready to save lives and help protect the country said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system this whole project is a triple win its a win for the texas a&m system its a win for fdb its a win for the nation
operation warp speed aims to begin delivering millions of doses of covid-19 vaccines by the end of the year if the us food and drug administration determines candidates are safe and effective novavax is being funded by the government to complete late-stage clinical development including a pivotal phase 3 clinical trial; establish large-scale manufacturing; and deliver 100 million doses of nvx‑cov2373 novavaxs covid-19 vaccine candidate the fdb plant in north carolina where president trump visited monday is already producing the novavax vaccine candidate for its clinical trials fdb is slated to transfer the manufacturing process to college station in late 2020 and start bulk production in early 2021 fdbs facilities and workforce in texas can accommodate multiple vaccine technologies and help expedite the governments large-scale manufacturing efforts the manufacturing preparation is being done in parallel with ongoing clinical trials and the fdas safety and effectiveness approval process fdb calls the facility reserved for novavax vaccine production its flexible biomanufacturing facility fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies is committed to be a partner for life and deliver these much-needed covid-19 vaccine doses said dr gerry farrell chief operating officer of fdb in texas we are ready to move swiftly to deliver on multiple vaccine candidates as directed by the us government the texas a&m systems ciadm was one of three centers developed in the us in response to the h1n1 influenza pandemic by the biomedical advanced research and development agency (barda) part of the office of the assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the us department of health and human services the task order is an amendment to the ciadm contract between the system and barda this validates why the ciadm program was established said dr w jay treat texas a&ms chief manufacturing officer for the ciadm we have state-of-the-art facilities ready to make millions doses of vaccines to meet the critical needs of our citizens
high blood pressure is the single biggest risk factor for heart disease stroke and other health problems the only way to know if youre at risk is to have it checked often while one in three american adults has high blood pressure about 20% of people are unaware that they have it because it is largely symptomless researchers at texas a&m university hope to help remedy this with a wrist-worn system that monitors blood pressure during sleepdr roozbeh jafari a professor in the biomedical engineering computer science and engineering and electrical and computer engineering departments and his team have received a $36 million grant from the national institutes of health (nih) to create a system a user can wear all night while they sleep for constant readings blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of arteries as the heart pumps blood high blood pressure also referred to as hypertension is when that force is too high and begins harming the body if left untreated it will eventually cause damage to the heart and blood vessels regular blood pressure monitoring systems use a mercury-based (or the digital equivalent) inflatable cuff-based sphygmomanometer many factors can affect blood pressure readings like caffeine stress and exertion and most people do not have theirs checked outside a doctors officethere is a significant need to understand how blood pressure fluctuates throughout the day and night said jafari nobody knows that and there's really no technology that can capture this continuouslyjafari said there is a value to measuring blood pressure continuously in the natural context of the users environment especially during sleep without being disturbed by the instrument but the nature of the current cuff device allows for only infrequent measurements and its somewhat invasive nature and associated discomfort prohibits additional nocturnal measurements the objective of this research a collaborative project with the yale school of medicine is to create an unobtrusive wrist-worn cuffless blood pressure monitor for measurement and identification of nocturnal nondipping hypertension (when theres a smaller decrease in nocturnal arterial blood pressure) the research which began initially about three years ago includes extensive validation with state-of-the-art ambulatory blood pressure monitors at nighttime in the presence of varied treatment models the research team's proposed technology will be able to provide a wealth of information to physicians help identify certain short-term dynamics and variations of blood pressure and allow effective monitoring of response to medication among other things
nighttime blood pressure is actually a really good indicator for the health of the cardiovascular system jafari said at nighttime typically the body itself shows its true behavior you and i can get stressed out we can have a relaxing time and you could be very active physically right all those specific stimuli will impact the blood pressure but at nighttime you don't have that so you're sort of having a baseline another significance of nighttime blood pressure is that you don't have a lot of movement the movements themselves introduce a significant amount of noise and challenges with respect to capturing clean signals jafari said nocturnal measurements would obviously provide additional prognostic value in identifying risks but despite these benefits no wearable noninvasive device for continuous blood pressure monitoring exists on the market simply because none have been reliable enough to be considered clinical gradethe researchers set about developing a robust and reliable blood pressure monitor that uses bioimpedance sensors (a measure of how well the body impedes electric current flow) and for the first time demonstrates clinical-grade reliability they use sensors that measure pulse-wave velocity (pwv) along with several other derivatives for cardiovascular parameters including heart rate and blood volume changes in arteries which correlate with the blood pressurethe system will incorporate a hardware design to localize the underlying vascular system of the body and focus on arterial sites for enhanced accuracy the device will include a motion sensor to take into account the users movements and the contact quality and reliability of the measurements advanced machine learning techniques leveraging both general and personalized models will be developed to convert bioimpedance measurements to blood pressureresearchers hope to validate the system and analytics in both a healthy patient cohort and a hypertensive cohort learning the impact that nocturnal nondipping hypertension and anti-hypertensive treatments have on pwv and other correlated cardiovascular and blood pressure estimatesother collaborators on the project include dr harlan krumholz and dr erica spatz yale school of medicine; dr melissa grunlan department of biomedical engineering; dr tom ferris department of industrial and systems engineering; and dr bobak mortazavi department of computer science and engineering
while jafari and his research team have been working on their device for the past three years with a previous nih grant with the new funding they will begin two new phases of the project at texas a&m where they will create novel techniques and methods will refine their prototype design and continue testing itthe next version will be fully wearable and effectively would look like a smartwatch jafari said once we have that we are going to start the evaluation of that technology on a cohort of human subjectsthe last phase of the project will be at the yale school of medicine where they will do extensive testing on hypertension patients who are on different medications eventually their hope is that after decades of relying on the inflatable cuff-based technique this new system could represent a significant change in how blood pressure is measuredwe still have more battles to fight but i think the likelihood of success at this point is very high jafari said our objective actually is to build a system that can work for anyone even somebody who has absolutely no problem with blood pressure but the ultimate objective is to enable anybody and everybody to have this kind of technology at their disposal
as the coronavirus pandemic continues to surge worldwide there is an urgent need for anything that can bring us closer to a vaccine or treatment that will protect people from future infections sars-cov-2 (also known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is the virus that infects cells and causes the coronavirus disease in humans researchers could theoretically eliminate the threat of the coronavirus if they can discover how to prevent this virus from binding to cells in the first place preventing this binding is easier said than done but the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) national center for therapeutics manufacturing (nctm) has received funding from the national institute for innovation in manufacturing biopharmaceuticals (niimbl) to help find a way to do just that nctm is producing spike proteins to identify antibodies that can attach to the sars-cov-2 spike protein receptor-binding domain and prevent the virus from binding to key sites thus obstructing the virus from entering and infecting human cells there are hundreds of virus-fighting antibodies in plasma and using recombinant spike proteins is the fastest way to detect the correct ones we need to fight covid-19 said dr zivko nikolov professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university and director of nctm
nctms strategy is derived from what happened with dr kent brantly who survived ebola then donated his plasma to help others recover as well doctors and scientists identified antibodies in his blood that could recognize the ebola virus and prevent it from multiplying further in patients similarly nctm researchers are making versions of covid-19 spike proteins that can be used to measure antibody responses to the sars-cov-2 virus spike proteins in order to aid in the recombinant development of these antibodies in the future nctms spike proteins will also be useful once a covid-19 vaccination is available beyond screening convalescent plasma the spike proteins will be needed to determine if protective responses are being generated in response to the vaccination how long responses persist and if having antibodies to the spike protein provides a person with immunity such that they can safely return to the workplace without fear of reinfection said tees research scientist dr susan woodard nctm is collaborating with the army research lab (arl) whose research affiliates have been studying coronavirus spike proteins since 2013 the most promising constructs designed by arl partners have been shared with nctm to produce more proteins the proteins that nctm makes in cell culture will be provided to arl and they will work with houston methodist hospital to use the purified material in serology assays to screen donors for convalescent plasma therapy arl will also use nctms proteins to screen monoclonal antibodies that neutralize the virus the purified spike proteins are important for determining the strength of antibodies present in recovered covid-19 patients and antibodies made against the spike proteins are expected to prevent the virus from binding to and infecting human cells i am excited to scale up the effort to produce spike proteins and to deliver hundreds of milligrams of purified proteins to collaborators at the arl houston methodist hospital the us department of commerces national institute of standards and technology and niimbl nikolov added i truly believe nctm is uniquely qualified to respond to the education training and applied research needs of texas a&m university and the broader community this work was performed under financial assistance award 70nanb20h037 from the u s department of commerce national institute of standards and technology
the national center for therapeutics manufacturing is a first-of-its-kind multi-disciplinary workforce education institution and biopharmaceutical manufacturing center located at texas a&m university in college station texas the nctms workforce development mission is to provide education training and outreach programs to produce a highly skilled workforce for the vital us and global pharmaceutical industry
dr amir asadi and his team have developed a new manufacturing process for hybrid polymer composites – a vital component in the aerospace automotive marine and defense industries this new process will produce super-strong composites to be used in load-bearing mechanical components in various industry sectors across the nationasadi is an assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university and his project is funded by the national science foundationmy research is like tailoring asadi said you put fabrics together and sew them to make something out of it with the desired properties and level of performance in your mind these nanomaterials are the nanothreadscarbon fiber reinforced polymer (cfrp) composites the most commonly used in the aerospace industry are able to withstand the highest load-to-weight ratio which makes them highly desirable for aerospace and defense applications
unfortunately the current cfrps are expensive – both in carbon production cost and time needed to manufacture them – and have reached a plateau in their strength capabilities additionally while studies suggest that integrating carbon nanotubes into cfrps can overcome these strength limitations the process includes invasive treatment that leads to uneven distribution of the nanotubes and damaging carbon fibers that can actually counterproductively weaken the final productin response to this asadi and his team have established a new method of manufacturing that utilizes cellulose nanocrystals in place of chemicals time- and cost-ineffective processesthe new process enables the production of nanostructured hybrid cfrp composites at a large scale with desired structure and performance with fewer processing steps asadi said
"along with reducing the time and expense associated with making composites asadi's process opens the door for more customizable materialsright now we have very large and bulky materials and we start to cut them and make something out of them "" said asadi ""if we achieve this process successfully we can start to build complex structures from the nanoscale we would be able to engineer structures from the bottom to the top so this is exciting for me because first of all you are mimicking nature and second of all you can create structures with desired properties without wasting any material"
in 2020 global research and development (r&d) investment reached $24 trillion and a significant part of that r&d is performed in the academic laboratories in universities and research centers the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) with its international partners is launching a webinar series to bring together stakeholders from different regions of the world to address the challenges and opportunities involved in the commercialization of deep technology ideas the first workshop of the deep tech talk webinar series will be presented on july 13 at 8 am (north american central standard time) this webinar series will present and discuss experiences from around the world about the path for commercialization of deep technologies that advance scientific frontiers registration is free for all participants including faculty researchers and graduate students interested in moving ideas to the marketplace deep technologies address the biggest societal and environmental challenges and shape the way we solve the most pressing global issues in diverse industries such as agriculture health care energy and transportation examples of deep technologies include advanced materials artificial intelligence blockchain biotechnology drones and robotics photonics and electronics and quantum computing advancing innovations from research labs to the marketplace in the deep technology space is very challenging said dr saurabh biswas chairperson of the webinar series and executive director of tees commercialization and entrepreneurship our deep tech talk webinar series is a global platform where faculty executives entrepreneurs and investors will be sharing their key learning and strategies to transition great ideas toward commercial viability the webinar series will focus on attributes of deep technologies collaborations and roles of universities in the ecosystem and opportunities and challenges in the development of disruptive technologies speakers will have significant expertise in the transfer of technologies from a university setting to the marketplace the integration of technologies into corporations and acceleration of the transfer of products to the marketplace through startup companies and agencies that support the transmission of research outcomes to the marketplace arnaud de la tour ceo of hello tomorrow will deliver the keynote presentation the path for commercialization of deep technologies dr blake teipel from essentium inc cosimi corleto from stil marposs and dr sam saltiel from beta cae systems will offer company perspectives view the july workshop schedule for more details this webinar series is an international partnership with texas a&m university at qatar aristotle university of thessaloniki in greece and arts et métier in france and the advisory board represents different geographic regions organizations universities and industries
the coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic has led to such a stark shortage of personal protective equipment (ppe) that health care professionals have resorted to wearing trash bags as makeshift gowns in hopes of mitigating these obstacles texas a&m university researchers dr david staack and dr matt pharr from the college of engineering and dr suresh pillai from the college of agriculture and life sciences began studying ways to recycle ppe through radiationprior to covid-19 a large portion of staacks research already focused on medical device sterilization and decontamination staack pillai and pharr were working on a similar medical device sterilization project funded by the department of energy that identified how polymers and plastics are changed when directly exposed to electron beams or gamma rays when the pandemic struck it wasnt difficult for the research team to shift their focus to begin sterilizing and recycling ppe like surgical masks gowns face shields and most importantly n95 respirators there are two components of an n95 mask that determine its functionality: filtration and fit the n95 mask is composed of microscopic pores meant to filter out contaminants such as dust and fumes down to about 03 microns combined with an electrostatic charge on the non-woven polypropylene fiber for nanoscale particle trapping the mask is capable of filtering 95% of particles 300 nanometers in size if worn properly designed to fit snuggly around the nose face and chin the mask can prevent germs from escaping through the sides of the mask when speaking or breathingas part of their research staack and his team sent brand new n95 masks and other ppe through their radiation recycling process at the electron beam facility while they found that the mechanical properties of the equipment were not damaged the n95 mask no longer filtered 95% of particles
the radiated masks ended up going from filtering 95% of particles 300 nanometers in size to only filtering between 50% and 60% of particles a few hundred nanometers in size said staack the sallie and don davis 61 career development professor in mechanical engineering thats still a lot better than a homemade mask made from a t-shirt for perspective a strand of human hair is approximately 80 000 to 100 000 nanometers in diameteradditionally some of the electrostatic filtration of the n95 mask is lost from a day of wear hence the disposable nature and while the first option is to immediately reach for a brand-new mask each day pandemics like ones caused by covid-19 can quickly lead to a stark shortage in ppe for health care professionals so what's the best backup strategyelectron beam irradiation is a common proven and fda-approved method of medical device sterilization irradiation by electron beam gamma and x-ray methods account for approximately 50% of the market of all medical devices sterilized worldwide the electron beam facility is already equipped for industrial use and based on staacks research is able to process and recycle 10 000 masks an hourtheres still some logistical issues were working through said staack can we do it safely can masks be distributed to someone other than the original user these are the questions were researching now so that if something happens in the short term like another wave of covid-19 were ready and if something happens in the long term were more knowledgeable about itthere are approximately 50 to 100 electron beam facilities in the united states alone staacks goal is to be able to share the teams results and distribute this critical information around the world so that everyone is better equipped to tackle a global pandemic
staack pharr and pillai teamed up using the food technology facility for electron beam and space food research and the plasma engineering and non-equilibrium processing laboratory on the texas a&m campus they also referenced research from dr mike moreno dr john criscione and dr sarah brooks at texas a&m showing that t-shirt masks only filter about 10% of particles and don't conform well to the face leaving germs and contaminants likely to enter and escape thus making recycled ppe a viable second-place strategy
col rosendo ross guieb has been named as the first executive director of the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) effective today guieb moves from the senior staff of army futures command (afc) to the new role of managing the bcdc a complex being built on the 2 000-acre rellis campus in bryan texas to help accelerate military innovation who better to lead this critical national defense initiative said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system ross understands the challenges of modernization inside and out he will be instrumental as we assist the army with next-generation battlefield readiness guieb will report to dr m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the texas a&m system ross will be integral to our program and will keep serving our country in this new role banks said his experience will help ensure that the strategic partnership between afc and the texas a&m system remains perfectly aligned guieb will manage the vision goals and execution strategies of the bcdc while working to expand relationships with other key stakeholders in national defense innovation he will work alongside dr john e hurtado deputy director and chief technology officer of bcdc
to learn more about guieb and his new role with the bush combat development complex see the announcement about guieb's appointment as executive director and the story of his background on the bcdc website
inspired by the same modeling and mathematical laws used to predict the spread of pandemics researchers at texas a&m university have created a model to accurately forecast the spread and recession process of floodwaters in urban road networks with this new approach researchers have created a simple and powerful mathematical approach to a complex problemwe were inspired by the fact that the spread of epidemics and pandemics in communities has been studied by people in health sciences and epidemiology and other fields and they have identified some principles and rules that govern the spread process in complex social networks said dr ali mostafavi associate professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering so we ask ourselves are these spreading processes the same for the spread of flooding in cities we tested that and surprisingly we found that the answer is yesthe findings of this study were recently published in nature's scientific reportsthe contagion model susceptible-exposed-infected-recovered (seir) is used to mathematically model the spread of infectious diseases in relation to flooding mostafavi and his team integrated the seir model with the network spread process in which the probability of flooding of a road segment depends on the degree to which the nearby road segments are floodedin the context of flooding susceptible refers to a road that can be flooded because it is in a flood plain; exposed refers to a road that has flooding due to rainwater or overflow from a nearby channel; infected refers to a road that is flooded and cannot be used; and recovered refers to a road where the floodwater has receded the research team verified the models use with high-resolution historical data of road flooding in harris county during hurricane harvey in 2017 the results show that the model can monitor and predict the evolution of flooded roads over timethe power of this approach is it offers a simple and powerful mathematical approach and provides great potential to support emergency managers public officials residents first responders and other decision makers for flood forecast in road networks mostafavi saidthe proposed model can achieve decent precision and recall for the spatial spread of the flooded roads if you look at the flood monitoring system of harris county it can show you if a channel is overflowing now but theyre not able to predict anything about the next four hours or next eight hours also the existing flood monitoring systems provide limited information about the propagation of flooding in road networks and the impacts on urban mobility but our models and this specific model for the road networks is robust at predicting the future spread of flooding he said in addition to flood prediction in urban networks the findings of this study provide very important insights about the universality of the network spread processes across various social natural physical and engineered systems; this is significant for better modeling and managing cities as complex systems the only limitation to this flood prediction model is that it cannot identify where the initial flooding will begin but mostafavi said there are other mechanisms in place such as sensors on flood gauges that can address thisas soon as flooding is reported in these areas we can use our model which is very simple compared to hydraulic and hydrologic models to predict the flood propagation in future hours the forecast of road inundations and mobility disruptions is critical to inform residents to avoid high-risk roadways and to enable emergency managers and responders to optimize relief and rescue in impacted areas based on predicted information about road access and mobility this forecast could be the difference between life and death during crisis response he saidcivil engineering doctoral student and graduate research assistant chao fan led the analysis and modeling of the hurricane harvey data along with xiangqi (alex) jiang a graduate student in computer science who works in mostafavis urbanresilienceai labby doing this research i realize the power of mathematical models in addressing engineering problems and real-world challenges this research expands my research capabilities and will have a long-term impact on my career fan said in addition i am also very excited that my research can contribute to reducing the negative impacts of natural disasters on infrastructure servicesthis research is funded by the national science foundations crisp 20 type 2 project in which mostafavi is the lead principal investigator
if you look at the flood monitoring system of harris county it can show you if a channel is overflowing now but theyre not able to predict anything about the next four hours or next eight hours also the existing flood monitoring systems provide limited information about the propagation of flooding in road networks and the impacts on urban mobility but our models and this specific model for the road networks is robust at predicting the future spread of flooding he said in addition to flood prediction in urban networks the findings of this study provide very important insights about the universality of the network spread processes across various social natural physical and engineered systems; this is significant for better modeling and managing cities as complex systems the only limitation to this flood prediction model is that it cannot identify where the initial flooding will begin but mostafavi said there are other mechanisms in place such as sensors on flood gauges that can address thisas soon as flooding is reported in these areas we can use our model which is very simple compared to hydraulic and hydrologic models to predict the flood propagation in future hours the forecast of road inundations and mobility disruptions is critical to inform residents to avoid high-risk roadways and to enable emergency managers and responders to optimize relief and rescue in impacted areas based on predicted information about road access and mobility this forecast could be the difference between life and death during crisis response he saidcivil engineering doctoral student and graduate research assistant chao fan led the analysis and modeling of the hurricane harvey data along with xiangqi (alex) jiang a graduate student in computer science who works in mostafavis urbanresilienceai labby doing this research i realize the power of mathematical models in addressing engineering problems and real-world challenges this research expands my research capabilities and will have a long-term impact on my career fan said in addition i am also very excited that my research can contribute to reducing the negative impacts of natural disasters on infrastructure servicesthis research is funded by the national science foundations crisp 20 type 2 project in which mostafavi is the lead principal investigator
as new infectious diseases emerge and spread one of the best shots against novel pathogens is finding new medicines or vaccines but before drugs can be used as potential cures they have to be painstakingly screened for composition safety and purity among other things thus there is an increasing demand for technologies that can characterize chemical compounds quickly and in real time addressing this unmet need researchers at texas a&m university have now invented a new technology that can drastically downsize the apparatus used for raman spectroscopy a well-known technique that uses light to identify the molecular makeup of compounds raman benchtop setups can be up to a meter long depending on the level of spectroscopic resolution needed said dr pao-tai lin assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and the department of materials science and engineering we have designed a system that can potentially replace these bulky benchtops with a tiny photonic chip that can snugly fit within the tip of a finger in addition lin said that their innovative photonic device is also capable of high-throughput real-time chemical characterization and despite its size is at least 10 times more sensitive than conventional benchtop raman spectroscopy systems a description of their study is in the may issue of the journal analytical chemistry the basis of raman spectroscopy is the scattering of light by molecules when hit by light of a certain frequency molecules perform a dance rotating and vibrating upon absorbing the energy from the incident beam when they lose their excess energy molecules emit a lower-energy light which is characteristic of their shape and size this scattered light known as the raman spectra contains the fingerprints of the molecules within a sample
typical benchtops for raman spectroscopy contain an assortment of optical instruments including lenses and gratings for manipulating light these free-space optical components take a lot of space and are a barrier for many applications where chemical sensing is required within tiny spaces or locations that are hard to reach also benchtops can be prohibitive for real-time chemical characterizationas an alternative to traditional lab-based benchtop systems lin and his team turned to tube-like conduits called waveguides that can transport light with very little loss of energy while many materials can be used to make ultrathin waveguides the researchers chose a material called aluminum nitride since it produces a low raman background signal and is less likely to interfere with the raman signal coming from a test sample of interest to create the optical waveguide the researchers employed a technique used by industry for drawing circuit patterns on silicon wafers first using ultraviolet light they spun a light-sensitive material called nr9 onto a surface made of silica next by using ionized gas molecules they bombarded and coated aluminum nitride along the pattern formed by the nr9 finally they washed the assembly with acetone leaving behind an aluminum waveguide that was just tens of microns in diameter for testing the optical waveguide as a raman sensor the research team transported a laser beam through the aluminum nitride waveguide and illuminated a test sample containing a mixture of organic molecules upon examining the scattered light the researchers found that they could discern each type of molecule within the sample based on the raman spectra and with a sensitivity of at least 10 times more than traditional raman benchtops
to create the optical waveguide the researchers employed a technique used by industry for drawing circuit patterns on silicon wafers first using ultraviolet light they spun a light-sensitive material called nr9 onto a surface made of silica next by using ionized gas molecules they bombarded and coated aluminum nitride along the pattern formed by the nr9 finally they washed the assembly with acetone leaving behind an aluminum waveguide that was just tens of microns in diameter for testing the optical waveguide as a raman sensor the research team transported a laser beam through the aluminum nitride waveguide and illuminated a test sample containing a mixture of organic molecules upon examining the scattered light the researchers found that they could discern each type of molecule within the sample based on the raman spectra and with a sensitivity of at least 10 times more than traditional raman benchtops
lin noted since their optical waveguides have very fine width many of them can be loaded onto a single photonic chip this architecture he said is very conducive to high-throughput real-time chemical sensing needed for drug development our optical waveguide design provides a novel platform for monitoring the chemical composition of compounds quickly reliably and continuously also these waveguides can be easily manufactured at an industrial scale by leveraging the already existing techniques to make semiconductor devices said lin this technology we believe has a direct benefit for not just pharmaceutical industries but even for other industries like petroleum where our sensors can be put along underground pipes to monitor the composition of hydrocarbons other contributors to this research are megan makela from the department of materials science and engineering; and paul gordon dandan tu cyril soliman dr gerard coté and dr kristen maitland from the department of biomedical engineering this research is funded by the national science foundation precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) engineering research center
the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) engineering research center was funded by the national science foundation in 2017 paths-up aims to change the paradigm for the health of underserved populations by developing revolutionary and cost-effective technologies and systems at the point-of-care the initial paths-up technologies and systems are designed to help with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease which are leading causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide
dr tracy hammond professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university was recently named the director of the institute for engineering education and innovation (ieei) the appointment is effective sept 1 and she will devote 40% of her effort to lead the ieei i am thrilled at the opportunity provided to me by the college of engineering hammond said i look forward to bringing our already excellent faculty to even greater heights ieei is a center within the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) its mission is to serve as a focal point and academic resource for engineering education research for faculty and administrators in order to advance the practices of engineering education in the texas a&m university system and worldwide hammond is also director of the sketch recognition lab and chair of the engineering education faculty at texas a&m she is an international leader in engineering education and her background includes degrees from columbia university and the massachusetts institute of technology (mit) including a masters degree in anthropology from columbia and a doctoral degree in computer science from mit she has received several awards for her contributions to the texas a&m engineering program and her professional field including the 2011 charles h barclay jr ‘45 faculty fellow award and the 2020 tees faculty fellow distinction she has also earned multiple educational teaching and best paper awards hammond is an international leader in activity recognition (focusing on eye body and sketch motions) haptics intelligent fabrics smartphone development and computer human interaction research her publications on the subjects are widely cited and her engineering education research has positively impacted learning across k-12 and is part of the engineering curricula at georgia tech texas state university san jose state university letourneau university texas a&m and several high schools her work has also been featured on the discovery channel and other national and international news sources additionally she has received over $13 million in research funding including 28 engineering education research grants with 13 of these from national science foundation engineering education directorates
the institute for engineering education and innovation is a texas a&m university system and texas a&m engineering experiment station wide institute that initiates engineering education research with kindergartners through 12th graders undergraduates graduate students professionals and faculty the institutes research helps inform texas a&m university and the engineering education community with strategies for developing the best engineersand more engineersfor the 21st century
the covid-19 pandemic resulted in a sudden shift in operations focused largely on maintaining established and essential businesses which appeared to leave many innovators and startup companies on their own to find new ways to continue to network secure funding and track market trends even in the midst of a global pandemic it is important for the entrepreneurship ecosystem to carry on operating as normal because maintaining momentum when entering a constantly evolving marketplace is crucial to successfully forming companies and commercializing inventions the texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) recognizes the paramount importance of the state of texas innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and thus swiftly converted its annual competition for innovators to a completely virtual delivery system in only two months ensuring innovators investors and mentors all over the state of texas would be able to network with their peers and engage with potential business contacts as well as have access to over $400 000 in funding and prizes during a time when you cant necessarily go and network at an incubator or business function we put together a virtual event that connected several hundred people around entrepreneurial commercialization said chris scotti chair of tnvc and entrepreneur-in-residence with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) even if people couldnt meet in person and with the pandemic in mind it was even more crucial to the texas economy that we provide a virtual space where they could engage instead
tnvc assists deep technology startups at a critical stage of commercialization with funding and connections and it also provides an easy way for early stage investors to identify and fund texas best startups taking these science and engineering technologies from lab to market not only benefits society with cutting edge inventions and research it also fuels economic growth and builds stronger communities during these uncertain times this competition was one of the rare moments where the startup community can join together from afar to support one another and see the amazing things we are all doing even though many of us are working from home said allotrope medicals albert huang winner of 2020s tnvc innovation doesnt stop we just all have to adapt huang added the state of texas boasts five million jobs related to commercialized intellectual property (ip) and the jobs at these ip-intensive companies pay 297% higher than their ip-focused peers employees from more than 100 companies that tnvc has touched through their competition over the past six years have gone on to contribute in excess of $70 million in economic impact annually in texas im looking forward to working with the texas a&m engineering experiment station to support texans seeking innovative solutions for the real world issues facing our state said texas workforce commission chairman bryan daniel the work being done will create cutting edge businesses with new exciting job opportunities tnvc hopes to grow their program through related events year round and also looks forward to being involved in regional and industry-focused feeder competitions throughout texas in cooperation with regional entrepreneurial ecosystems given the impressive virtual delivery of this years tnvc event collaboration with others within and beyond the texas a&m university system to help create similar virtual programs are also on the horizon the tees commercialization & entrepreneurship team is fully committed to working with our partners to grow tnvc to support our innovators across the texas a&m university system and also across the state of texas said dr saurabh biswas tees executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship this year's successful outcome reinforced for us the need and important role this event plays in the texas innovation ecosystem and we look forward to building up on this success in years to come
"the texas a&m engineering experiment station's (tees) clean energy incubator has received a $50 000 grant from the wells fargo innovation incubator (in2) as part of its program to help startup companies retain staff and cope with the impacts due to covid-19 wells fargo in2 is awarding $900 000 to help experts in agtech finance and clean technology companies and the program is co-administered by the national renewable energy laboratory according to wells fargo research recent studies have shown that 74% of startups have seen revenues decline since the beginning of the covid-19 crisis the clean energy incubator first received a grant in 2017 from the texas state energy conservation office part of the state comptrollers office to pioneer a program for distressed clean energy startups called ctrl-alt-del with the wells fargo grant the clean energy incubator will expand those services to distressed clean technology startups by providing pandemic response support advisory services and curated information and resources to clients we know that small businesses across america are being hit especially hard right now said trish cozart manager of the program according to john pappas the clean energy incubators principal investigator with the advent of covid-19 our clients needed an urgent change of focus covid-19 changed the entire work environment raised the specter of cash crunches and changed the risk calculation coupling our ctrl-alt-del program with lessons learned from our own response to covid-19 means we could help immediately"" pappas continued ""innovation can and will persist even during times of contraction and this expedited funding is designed to support that"" wells fargo is also starting its in2 channel partner awards program – a $5 million total fund – that hopes to strengthen sustainable technology initiatives and address barriers that startups face on the path to commercialization the new round of award funds will be allocated toward programming or operational assistance designed to address the unprecedented challenges that startups within the partners portfolios are experiencing in the current business environment wells fargos partnership with texas a&m has always been focused on making impacts to those that we serve said shane hinckley vice president of brand development at texas a&m this is a great example of how a campus-wide partnership with texas a&m can have a far reaching effect the grant to tees' clean energy incubator is greatly appreciated and in line with the vision of where we wanted this relationship to be when we became partners besides tees other college winners include new york university the university of texas and the university of nebraska"
the clean energy incubator encourages commercialization of clean energy technologies from tees and texas clean energy technology refers to any energy-related technology that improves efficiency reduces waste or has a favorable environmental impact during the last six-month reporting period client companies reported $8 642 630 in capital investment raised $546 864 in revenue earned $1 475 982 spent in texas and 107 jobs supported it is supported by the texas state energy conservation office the us department of energy the wells fargo in2 program and tees
recent discoveries made by researchers at texas a&m university could change the way ovarian cancer is understood and treated dr abhishek jain assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering and the department of medical physiology in the college of medicine collaborated with researchers from the departments of gynecologic oncology and cancer biology at md anderson cancer center to gain a better understanding of the interaction among ovarian cancer tumors blood vessels and platelets they found that tumors break the blood vessel barriers so that they can communicate with the blood cells such as platelets when these tumors come into contact with platelets they can then metastasize or begin to spread to other sites in the body the collaborative research was recently published in the journal blood advances currently researchers understand that platelets are one of the initiators of ovarian cancer metastasis but did not know what led to the introduction of the platelets to the tumor cells instead of struggling to view this relationship in animal models jains team brought a new solution to the table: organ-on-a-chip research organs-on-a-chip are microfluidic medical devices the size of a usb drive the team designed on the ovca-chip to give researchers an easier window to view the biological processes between tumors and platelets
"in an interview with the international society on thrombosis and hemostasis jain explained that ""it basically is a microenvironment where ovarian tumor cells can be co-cultured along with their blood vessels and then they can interact with blood cells once we learn about these interactions we can then move forward to look into how drugs will impact these kinds of interactions"" viewing the interaction between tumors and blood vessels on the ovca-chip led the researchers to an extraordinary result the tumor cells systematically broke down the endothelial cells which are the barrier that lines the interior surface of blood vessels and prevents exterior interaction with blood cells once this barrier was gone blood cells and platelets entered the tumor microenvironment and could be recruited for metastasis harnessing this knowledge could change how clinicians approach ovarian cancer treatment jain said suggesting that anti-vascular drugs could be considered along with anticancer treatments a benefit of the organ-on-a-chip is that it can also test these novel drug treatments and drug combinations another application of the chips could be diagnostics ""you have to understand that these are chips that are living they contain living cells the advantage is that these are all actually human samples "" jain stated in the interview ""so what we think the future for this technology is is perhaps we can advance it in the direction of personalized medicine where we could actually take stem cells from patients and other patient-derived cells and make this entire chip from a single patient"""
the texas a&m university systems george hw bush combat development complex will soon feature the nations largest enclosed hypersonic testing facility as well as an outdoor range for trying out autonomous combat vehicles today the texas a&m university system board of regents approved spending a total of $603 million for the two facilities at the george hw bush combat development complex located on the rellis campus the bush combat development complex (bcdc) is being built as part an agreement between the a&m system and the us army futures command based in austin the complex will serve us researchers from universities the military and industry as they develop advanced technologies to modernize the us army of the total expenditures approved $378 million will be spent on the innovation proving ground (ipg) an outdoor testing site for autonomous aerial ground and subterranean vehicles ipg construction is expected to start next summer and be completed a year later also $225 million will be spent on the ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range a hypersonic and laser testing facility bam construction is scheduled to begin in february with substantial completion expected by october 2022 for more information see the a&m systems press release
the texas a&m university systems george h w bush combat development complex (bcdc) located on the 2 000-acre rellis campus is the result of a partnership with the us army futures command the bcdc will bring together academic researchers the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of various national security initiatives learn more about all of the bcdcs planned facilities and capabilities
the built environment where someone lives (private) or works (public) influences a persons daily life and can help or hinder their mental health this is especially true for those with mental health conditions such as ptsd or post-traumatic stress disorder researchers in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university are working to determine which elements of built environments affect veterans with ptsd the most and how they can be altered to help veterans thrive we have already established collaborations with veteran support groups to develop veteran-centered tools for monitoring and self-management of ptsd said dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor principal investigator of the project and 2020 tees research impact award winner through interactions with hundreds of veterans diagnosed with ptsd we realized the need to also investigate the context in which these tools are used and became interested in the design of built environments the researchers looked at three themes: architectural design features interior design features and ambient features as part of the project researchers interviewed veterans with ptsd about their triggers in public and private spaces from their interviews the researchers categorized and provided suggestions for each theme area that would provide the greatest positive impact for veterans alarmingly we learned there is a general gap in built environments design guidelines for mental health habitants in general and ptsd patients in particular so we leveraged our wide network of veterans to study their preferences sasangohar said architectural design features architectural design features are permanent features of a building or space that would be difficult or expensive to change after construction is completed like the entrance and exit locations in the study veterans identified six areas that made a difference toward their comfort: windows – large windows located closer to the ground made veterans feel safer in a space they also preferred to have multiple windows in a space so they could see what was going on outside entrance and exit location – veterans liked to easily see the entrance and exit to a room or building this helped keep them from feeling trapped in a space walkways/hallways – larger hallways that allowed for increased maneuverability and reduced the chance of touching other people were preferred by veterans open floor plans – open spaces allowed veterans to see their surroundings and provided them with feelings of security sharp turns and blind corners caused stress due to the inability to see what was around the bend green space – open spaces with vegetation made the veterans feel calmer and gave them more visibility interior design features interior design features are parts of a built environment that are easier to change and could be accommodated in spaces that are already built veterans preferred spaces with fewer pieces of furniture and walls that were painted in brighter more vivid colors instead of muted colors ambient design features ambient design features are the easiest features to change in a space and include lighting and air quality overall veterans preferred natural light some said that poor light including too much artificial lighting could trigger stress air and sound quality was important also including ventilation odor and noise levels many veterans said that certain odors could trigger fear or bad memories and that loud unexpected noises were particularly startling for them they felt that soundproofing was important in spaces they visited or lived in what can be done while this research addressed an important gap in research and practice the research team identified the need for more work to understand issues related to the design of built environments for those with ptsd further research should include a wide range of stakeholders including veterans veterans affairs architecture and housing regulatory bodies we hope that this research contributes to the curriculum codes and standards regulatory documents and general practice of designing built environments including health care facilities which are sensitive to the needs of veterans who are affected by ptsd and others with mental health conditions sasangohar said this research article veteran-centered investigation of architectural and space design considerations for post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) is featured in the health environments research & design journal
natures blueprint for the human limb is a carefully layered structure with stiff bone wrapped in layers of different soft tissue like muscle and skin all bound to each other perfectly achieving this kind of sophistication using synthetic materials to build biologically inspired robotic parts or multicomponent complex machines has been an engineering challenge by tweaking the chemistry of a single polymer researchers at texas a&m university and the us army combat capabilities development command army research laboratory have created a whole family of synthetic materials that range in texture from ultra-soft to extremely rigid the researchers said their materials are 3d printable self-healing recyclable and they naturally adhere to each other in air or underwater their findings are detailed in the may issue of the journal advanced functional materials we have made an exciting group of materials whose properties can be fine-tuned to get either the softness of rubber or the strength of load-bearing plastics said dr svetlana sukhishvili professor in the department of materials science and engineering and a corresponding author on the study their other desirable characteristics like 3d printability and the ability to self-heal within seconds make them suited for not just more realistic prosthetics and soft robotics but also ideal for broad military applications such as agile platforms for air vehicles and futuristic self-healing aircraft wings synthetic polymers are made up of long strings of repeating molecular motifs like beads on a chain in elastomeric polymers or elastomers these long chains are lightly crosslinked giving the materials a rubbery quality however these crosslinks can also be used to make the elastomers more rigid by increasing the number of crosslinks
although previous studies have manipulated the density of crosslinks to make elastomers stiffer the resulting change in mechanical strength was generally permanent crosslinks are like stitches in a piece of cloth: the more stitches you have the stiffer the material gets and vice versa said sukhishvili but instead of having these ‘stitches be permanent we wanted to achieve dynamic and reversible crosslinking so that we can create materials that are recyclableso the researchers focused their attention on the molecules involved in the crosslinking first they chose a parent polymer called prepolymer and then chemically studded these prepolymer chains with two types of small crosslinking molecules furan and maleimide by increasing the number of these molecules in the prepolymer they found that they could create materials stiffer in this way the hardest material they created was 1 000 times stronger than the softest however these crosslinks are also reversible furan and maleimide participate in a type of reversible chemical bonding put simply in this reaction furan and maleimide pairs can click and unclick depending on temperature when the temperature is high enough these molecules come apart from the polymer chains and the materials soften at room temperature the materials harden since the molecules quickly click back together once again forming crosslinks thus if there is any tear in these materials at ambient temperatures the researchers showed that furan and maleimide automatically re-click healing the gap within a few seconds
the researchers noted that the temperatures at which the crosslinkers dissociate or unclick from the prepolymer chains are relatively the same for different stiffness levels this property is useful for 3d printing with these materials regardless of whether they are soft or hard the materials can be melted at the same temperature and then used as printing ink by modifying the hardware and processing parameters in a standard 3d printer we were able to use our materials to print complex 3d objects layer by layer said dr frank gardea research engineer in the united states army research laboratory and a corresponding author on the study the unique advantage of our materials is that the layers that make up the 3d part can be of vastly different stiffnessas the 3d part cools to room temperature he added that the different layers join seamlessly precluding the need for curing or any other chemical processing consequently the 3d-printed parts can easily be melted using high heat and then recycled as printing ink the researchers also noted that their materials are reprogrammable in other words after being set into one shape they can be made to change into a different shape using just heat other contributors include qing zhou primary author of the paper and zhen sang from the department of materials science and engineering; and dr seunghyun lee and dr matt pharr from the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering this research is funded by the united states combat capabilities development command army research laboratory
in the future the researchers plan to increase the functionality of their new materials by amplifying its multifaceted properties outlined in the current studyright now we can easily achieve around 80% self-healing at room temperature but we would like to reach 100% also we want to make our materials responsive to other stimuli other than temperature like light said gardea further down the road wed like to explore introducing some low-level intelligence so that these materials know to autonomously adapt without needing a user to initiate the process
dr gerard coté director of the center for remote health technologies and systems texas a&m regents professor and holder of the james j cain professorship i received the walston chubb award for innovation from sigma xi the scientific research honor society i am honored that i was considered to receive the chubb award from sigma xi and that the committee felt our research merited their high standards for promoting creativity in science and engineering coté said i say ‘our work as much of what has been accomplished has been a team effort with my students staff and colleagues coté was recognized for his leadership in the development of biomedical optical systems for an array of medical applications with clinical impact along with a stipend coté will be recognized and present at this years annual meeting and student research conference which will be held virtually in november since the award is focused on innovation and the audience is broad including distinguished scientists and engineers from multiple disciplines as well as high school undergraduate and graduate students i plan to discuss engineering for impact with a focus on technologies for monitoring health at the point-of-care coté said the endowed award was formed to recognize research into new areas of potential scientific importance novel approaches to a long-standing problem in science or engineering or research that may create a new methodology of importance to science or engineering
the center for remote health technologies and systems is developing breakthrough remote health technologies algorithms and health analytics as well as using advanced systems engineering to solve the global health grand challenges and enable healthy living these powerful advances are not only helping to answer the critical needs of patients and providers they are shifting the health care landscape from disease management to disease prevention
imagine needing a part to fix something in your home but not being able to go out to the store to get it like those unable to go to the store to get something for a home repair project astronauts and inhabitants of future space missions will face a similar dilemma while living in space habitats or will they researchers at texas a&m university along with seven universities and three industry partners are working to make this problem solvable with on-demand metal additive manufacturing through the habitats optimized for missions of exploration (home) institute their work will allow space inhabitants to manufacture parts as needed with or without a human operator texas a&m has been working in the additive manufacturing of metallic parts for close to seven years which fits into nasas space technology research institutes goal of manufacturing metallic parts in microgravity said dr alaa elwany associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering imagine a part such as a gear fails on the space habitat rather than transporting an enormous amount of spare parts initially to the habitat the majority of which might not even get used we can simply send a digital model of that part and manufacture it on site through 3d printing elwany said additive manufacturing is challenging on earth and these challenges multiply when there is low gravity the research done by texas a&m will enable printing in microgravity and testing of parts to ensure they are able to perform effectively this research is a part of nasas in space manufacturing initiative and will be used in future missions including habitation on the moon and mars the funding provided by nasa to texas a&m will be used to support doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers the home team includes the university of california davis in partnership with the university of colorado boulder carnegie mellon university the georgia institute of technology howard university texas a&m and the university of southern california collaborators in industry include sierra nevada corporation blue origin and united technology aerospace systems
"the texas a&m engineering experiment station's early research efforts in space contributed to texas a&m becoming a space-grant institution in 1989 meaning they ""participate in nasas aeronautics and space projects by supporting and enhancing science and engineering education research and public outreach efforts"""
researchers in the us army combat capabilities development command's army research laboratory (arl) are working to develop a drone with the ability to morph while in flight to better fit its mission for example shortening and lengthening the wing for efficiency and speed to begin their work they turned to the expertise of researchers at texas a&m university for assistance with the complex analysis and design stage a team led by dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering tackled part of this first step by developing a novel fluid-structure interaction algorithm this vital tool will provide arl researchers with a streamlined means to analyze the interaction between fluid and air flows and flexible or adaptable solid structures in their pursuit of a transforming drone in aerospace a really common problem that we have to consider is the interaction between fluid flows and the solid structure that your vehicle is comprised of said hartl that analyzing of how the fluid pushes and deforms the structure and how the changing shape of the structure changes fluid flow in a simultaneous way is what is known as fluid structure interaction to elaborate an airplane for example is designed largely based on aerodynamics and should stay stiff and not change shape mid-flight however if the wings were allowed to lengthen on longer international flights the shape change would alter how the air flows around the original design and how it interacts with the actual physical structure of the plane
"fluid-structure interaction in morphing vehicles is much more complicated because motion is intentional "" hartl added ""so that's why we leaned into this problem; we needed a better way to solve fluid-structure interaction traditionally fluid-structure interaction is analyzed by running individual fluid and structural codes one at a time updating the pressure one increment at a time to see how it affects the structure and then updating the structural shape to see how it affects the pressure this impacts the design process because if any aspect of the design is changed the expensive fluid-structure interaction scheme has to be redone this could take days of computation going back and forth to find the sweet spot for design to fix this hartl and his team developed an algorithm that substantially cuts down the computational cost by simultaneously running analyses for various pressures and structure shapes and then using mathematical tools to stitch together two matching solutions i know that up until this point weve basically been unable to do serious design studies on morphing aircrafts because of this computational expense problem said hartl frankly this is one reason why there's not a lot of morphing airplane solutions the only way to have done this in the past was to design build and test and one primary problem with structures that can move is that wrong answers quickly lead to catastrophic failures the research team is comprised of collaborators from the us army combat capabilities development command's arl and texas a&m recently they published their work in uncoupled method for massively parallelizable 3d fluid-structure interaction analysis and design"
"hartl especially values this collaboration because it illustrates what is possible by having the army futures command and arl integrated with texas a&m this algorithm and idea are only a couple years old and the team was able to harvest it and use it because they were here "" hartl said ""they were the first ones to hear and see about this new way of solving a problem and immediately began applying it to their work the texas a&m university systems george h w bush combat development complex (bcdc) under construction at the rellis campus is the result of a partnership with the army futures command the bcdc will bring together academic researchers the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of various national security initiatives"
researchers from the texas a&m university college of engineering will play a key role in a consortium sponsored by natura resources llc to build an advanced research reactor in the state of texas the $305 million effort to design and license a research reactor is a collaboration with three other universities: abilene christian university georgia institute of technology and the university of texas at austin the texas a&m team has been awarded $35 million over the next three years for their portion of the project nuclear engineering faculty members drs pavel tsvetkov mark kimber and sean mcdeavitt and their respective research groups are members of the consortium texas a&m plays an important role on the team supporting the design thermal management and fuel characterization efforts toward the reactor said tsvetkov associate professor of nuclear engineering and lead of the texas a&m team we are excited to be part of the consortium this is going to be the first advanced reactor to be built in the 21st century in the us and the first to be built as a university research reactor it will enable the nuclear engineering community as well as serve the strategic role of workforce development supporting advanced reactors dr kimber and dr mcdeavitt have years of unique experience in important areas of the project allowing us to provide high-impact assistance to the team
"dr tony hill natura director of product development said we are incredibly pleased and honored to sponsor this remarkable multi-disciplinary collaboration of talented researchers – physicists engineers chemists and their students – to support our vision to develop advanced energy systems that are inherently safe sustainable and environmentally friendly"" launched in spring 2019 the consortiums goal is to design license and commission the first university-based molten salt research reactor ive been working with molten salts for nuclear applications off and on for over 25 years said mcdeavitt nuclear engineering professor and director of the nuclear engineering and science center this is an exciting opportunity to contribute to the actual construction of a nuclear energy system that has the potential to impact future generations the thermal management team will focus on validating modeling efforts aimed to predict thermal performance during normal and off-normal scenarios added kimber assistant professor of nuclear engineering being able to place a known confidence in those models is especially important with this advanced reactor design because it sets the stage for future reactor designs to follow suit texas a&m nuclear engineering department head dr michael nastasi stressed the importance of this project over the next several decades the energy environment must undergo a transformation to a minimal carbon future if greenhouse gasses are to be sufficiently limited molten salt reactors fit perfectly into this future because of their innate safety as well as their ability to consume spent nuclear fuel from conventional nuclear reactors he said additionally this project will help educate a new cohort of engineers who are equipped to work with advanced reactors"
texas a&ms department of nuclear engineering was established in 1958 and strives to serve the state nation and global community by nurturing nuclear engineering professionals and leaders to meet the complex challenges associated with the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and enhancing global security it is the largest program in the us with a current enrollment of 292 undergraduate and 141 graduate students the program is ranked second nationally among undergraduate and fifth nationally among graduate programs included in public universities by us news and world report
dr roderic pettigrew has written an essay humanity binds us which will be included in the fall edition of the bridge the flagship quarterly publication of the national academy of engineering the issue will be online mid-september and is dedicated to the memory of us congressman john lewis who passed away july 17 the essay is currently available on the association of american medical colleges website pettigrew is ceo of engineering health (enhealth) and executive dean for engineering medicine (enmed) at texas a&m university and houston methodist hospital as well as the robert a welch professor in the department of biomedical engineering
two faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering have been recognized by sigma xi the scientific research honor society for their exemplary achievements in science and engineering they will be recognized during the societys national meeting in november which will be held virtually nov 5-8 the two engineering faculty members and the awards they will receive are: gerard l coté texas a&m regents professor and holder of the james j cain professorship i department of biomedical engineering walston chubb award for innovation for leadership in the development of biomedical optical systems for an array of medical applications with clinical impact bonnie j dunbar tees eminent professor department of aerospace engineering john p mcgovern science and society award for leadership and contributions in aerospace engineering; work spanning industry academia and government; a commitment to furthering engineering and science education at texas a&m; and outreach to k-12 students in addition each faculty member will serve as a plenary speaker at the societys virtual research conference and art exhibit hacking the brain: the intersection of art and neuroscience dr marcetta y darensbourg from the department of chemistry was also recognized for significant contributions to bioinorganic chemistry from her work on chemistry of the di-iron hydrogenases congratulations to our remarkable faculty members on their selection for these well-deserved awards said dr mark a barteau vice president for research their individual contributions to bioinorganic chemistry aerospace engineering and biomedical sciences are representative of texas a&ms commitment to expanding the frontiers of science and its applications recognition by sigma xi a champion of the importance of scientific research is a testament to the impact of these scholars
us army secretary ryan d mccarthy visited the rellis campus today to see construction progress at the texas a&m university systems george hw bush combat development complex the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) will be used to modernize the us military leading researchers will work with warriors on high-tech solutions to real-world national security challenges its no wonder that secretary mccarthy marveled at the breadth of what were building said col ross guieb bcdc executive director this will be a mini-research pentagon a high-tech hub for army industry and university-based experts to collaborate in one state-of-the-art location together well develop next-generation defense capabilities to deter adversaries and convincingly win on any battlefield the bcdcs first strategic partner is the us army futures command (afc) which has contracted with the texas a&m system to research experiment with and test prototypes for next-generation soldiering mccarthy also toured two other texas a&m research laboratories for hypersonics and directed energy and he met with students from the corps of cadets at texas a&m for more information see the full press release about mccarthys visit
the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) located on the 2 000-acre rellis campus is the result of a partnership between the us army futures command (afc) and the texas a&m university system texas a&m engineering experiment station and the state of texas the $200 million complex will bring together researchers from us universities the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of initiatives to help accelerate military innovation the bcdc is funded with $50 million from the state legislature $65 million from afc and $85 million from the texas a&m system for more information about the bcdc visit the 2020 special edition of the texas a&m engineer magazine
dr roderic pettigrew texas a&m universitys chief executive officer of the engineering health program and executive dean for engineering medicine will receive a prestigious lifetime achievement award from the national science board (nsb) pettigrew will be presented with the vannevar bush award which is considered one of the nations highest science awards it honors lifelong science and technology leaders who have made exceptional contributions to the welfare of the nation through public service in science and technology and in shaping public policy roderic pettigrews passion and creativity have spurred innovation in biomedicine said victor mccrary vice chair of the national science board and chair of the 2020 nsb honorary awards subcommittee his reimagining of health-care solutions is helping converge science fields narrowing gaps between disciplines in a way that really impacts society pettigrew is helping us to see what might be what could be and what is possible pettigrews contributions are wide-ranging they include: his service as the founding director of the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering at the national institutes of health his advanced treatment for spinal injuries that enabled some chronically paralyzed men to regain voluntary muscle movement and sensory function his use of radiation in cancer treatments his work to use mris to image the beating heart and quantify blood flow his establishment of a partnership with the indian government to develop cuff-less blood pressure measurements along with other low-cost diagnostic and therapeutic technologies pettigrews work also involved bringing out the best in others while at nih he created the quantum grants program to encourage researchers to undertake medical moon shots to solve major challenges through technological innovation pettigrew continues to help others achieve greatness at texas a&m where he is executive dean of enmed in houston the program blends engineering and medicine in a four-year curriculum to develop problem-solving physicianeers; graduates who earn a medical degree and a masters degree in education plus they must invent a solution to a health care problem that is ready for a patent it is an incredible honor to receive the vannevar bush award which is so steeped in science history pettigrew said my only regret is that my parents are not alive to share this honor they were my first role models pettigrew was raised in rural georgia and attended segregated public schools before attending morehouse college in atlanta through a merrill scholarship after graduating with a bs in physics in 1972 he earned an ms in nuclear science and engineering at rensselaer polytechnic institute and a phd in applied radiation physics at massachusetts institute of technology where his work resulted in a new type of neutron activation radiation treatment of malignant brain tumors being pioneered at mit-harvard in 1979 he received an md from the university of miami in recent years he has been elected to the national academy of medicine the national academy of engineering the american academy of arts and sciences and the national academy of sciences india he has received the pierre galletti award from the american institute for medical and biological engineering the distinguished service award of both the international society of magnetic resonance in medicine and the national medical association the pritzker achievement award of the biomedical engineering society and was the first winner of the gold medal of the academy of radiology research he also was awarded a gold medal from the radiological society of north america and received the arthur m bueche award from the national academy of engineering the nsb created the award in 1980 in memory of vannevar bush who served as a science advisor to president franklin roosevelt during world war ii helped to establish federal funding for science and engineering as a national priority during peacetime and was behind the creation of the national science foundation past award recipients include: leon lederman (fermilab) nobel laureate harold varmus (former nih director) nobel laureate charles townes (uc berkeley -laser inventor) david packard (hewlett-packard company) rita colwell (former nsf director) charles vest (former mit president) and last year walter massey (university of chicago – oversaw giant magellan telescope)
dr chandler benjamin and his lab determine how to design materials so that they behave predictably in certain situations using material characterization and nonlinear models one of the main areas of benjamins research focuses on harnessing these models to help health care providers combat cardiovascular diseases affecting the bodys largest artery the aorta one disease in particular aortic dissection has been a primary focus of benjamins research an aortic dissection typically occurs when an injury to the innermost layer of the aorta allows blood to flow between the layers of the aortic wall forcing the layers apart if an aortic dissection occurs on the arch – the part that attaches right into the heart – i hope you are already in the hospital on the operating table said benjamin an assistant professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university if it occurs in the descending or the abdominal aorta it's very bad and you have some time to get to the hospital but still the fatality of that disorder is high unfortunately the condition is difficult to diagnose and can often be confused with an aneurysm based on current methods of detection including an mri which leaves physicians with no choice but to perform surgery to physically observe the artery to help assist health care providers in determining the likelihood of an aortic dissection benjamin and his lab group are working to create a model that could accurately detect the conditions under which it might occur most of the time you know this right before something bad is about to happen benjamin said we're trying to predict these things well before they occur if you could detect this before it ever becomes a serious problem then you can take steps toward prevention to accomplish such goals benjamin and his team take the materials they study and seek to determine how they behave when put under stress it is at this point where benjamins lab sets itself apart taking these characterizations and using them to test nonlinear models while more traditionally considered engineering materials use linear models biologically grown materials like the aorta require the use of nonlinear models similar to paint and toothpaste and are much more difficult to characterize if youre unable to describe how a material is going to behave under different loads and different conditions and if you have no models to represent this you cant even start benjamin said you cant even think about how youre going to predict something like this so this is always the first step in any mechanical development its the first thing that has to be done
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
research led by dr wonmuk hwang has led to better understanding how components of the bodys immune system detect intruding or damaged cells which could lead to novel approaches to viral and cancer treatments hwang associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has recently published his research in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences when viruses enter the body the immune system kicks into gear to seek out and destroy the intruders t-cells are one component of the immune system and they seek out viruses hiding in host cells acting as an ultimate line of defense against antigens or foreign bodies t-cells probe the surfaces of other cells examining materials scooped from inside the cells and presented by the major histocompatibility complex (mhc) molecules on the surfaces of the cells the problem is there are hundreds of thousands of mhc molecules displaying peptides and only a few are from invading cells if at all hwang said the rest of them are normal products of cellular metabolism which means the t-cell needs to be able to see that needle in the haystack researchers have discovered recently that t-cells increase their detection power mechanically: when t-cells probe the surfaces of other cells there is a natural contact force created if the cell is infected by an antigen the applied force results in a catch bond between the t-cell receptors (tcrs) and mhc molecules which strengthens the contact this bond does not occur between tcrs and mch molecules that do not carry specific antigens however it is almost impossible to see this interaction in atomic details experimentally so hwang developed a computer simulation that could realistically demonstrate and analyze the interaction between tcrs and mhc molecules when force is applied only the simulation can see and analyze molecular motion under load a lab experiment doesnt have the resolution hwang said experimentally determined atomic structures of proteins are static snapshots but when the molecule moves you have basically no way to see the motion what hwang discovered was how the motion between the parts of the tcr controls their interaction with the mhc molecules when force is applied the motion is suppressed only when the mhc molecule has the matching antigen thereby stabilizing the entire complex other cases will refuse to interlock with the tcr and the constant motion between the two eventually leads to them disconnecting it is like a lock-and-key system where the lock and key constantly change shape and only with a perfect match and under an adequate level of force can the molecules interlock hwang said the knowledge of which parts of the molecule respond to force can help tailor t-cells for certain applications other than fighting infections tcrs are also the rising stars of cancer therapy if you can train the t-cell to see those cancerous antigens itll be really specific therapy hwang said chemotherapy kills all the cells but t-cells you can train to recognize cancer cells with extreme accuracy hwang said the next step for him is to investigate what is general and what pertains to specific t-cell receptor systems to see how this principle applies to different t-cell receptors im going to expand this initial finding hwang said this is the very first work that has found the operation mechanism of t-cell receptors under force hwang collaborated with researchers from vanderbilt university and harvard medical school and the research was supported by grants from the national institutes of health
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
dr jens figlus associate professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university at galveston and a team of researchers are creating better designed hybrid coastal structures to safeguard coastal communities exposed to flooding and destruction in light of rising sea levels eroding coastlines and devastating hurricanes these structures combine the benefits of coastal sand dunes with those offered by traditional human-made structures like seawalls sea dikes and rubble mounds to elevate their effectiveness and resilience the teams work inspired by natural sand dunes will bridge the gap between research and application – allowing such structures to be utilized around the globe figlus details these types of hybrid structures in innovative coastal risk reduction through hybrid design: combining sand cover and structural defenses published in the journal of coastal research in the last decade or so the tide has turned to not approach everything with just brute force – so with concrete and steel type structures figlus said the direction coastal engineering has gone is more toward what some folks call engineering-with-nature approaches instead of trying to constantly battle and work against nature or protect against nature we're trying to use natural processes and more natural features to do the job that we intend to do as engineers like reducing the risk of flooding and destruction and increasing the level of protection
working with the coastal engineering lab the center of texas beaches and shores and researchers from other institutions such as the stevens institute of technology and delft university of technology in the netherlands figlus is testing how the combination of sand dunes and hard structures can best weather a storm the idea is that we're trying to make something look like and have vegetation ecosystems like a natural dune but in its core hidden underneath the sand layers would be a hard structure said figlus the combination of sand cover and hard structure is intended to do the job of reducing the risk of flooding inundation and destruction behind it in the event of a big storm surge and massive wave attack – like during hurricane ike but at the same time provide the aesthetic appeal and ecosystem services like a natural dune under normal conditions
research producing data-backed designs and guidelines for the construction of hybrid coastal structures has been lacking to fill this vital gap figlus and his team have conducted physical model tests and simulations utilizing the haynes coastal engineering wave basin in college station the team built a hybrid dune consisting of a rubble mound fortified core with sand on top they tested various storm scenarios– changing the wave and water levels to explore how the structure reacted and deformed when hit by storm waves
one primary objective of such a structure is to reduce the risk of flooding by limiting wave overtopping or the amount of water that goes over the structure this included testing what physical properties – such as slope and height of the dune – produce the best outcome and resilience against storm surge and wave impact the practical application is really the coastal spine intended to reduce the risk of flooding and storm surge damage to the greater houston-galveston region figlus said we're actively working on concepts that could hopefully be used by the army corps of engineers to design that potentially 70-mile-long coastal barrier these hybrid systems are a really good alternative
earthquakes hurricanes and tsunamis can have a catastrophic impact on infrastructuredr petros sideris assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a national science foundation (nsf) grant to advance the fundamental understanding and computational simulation of the damage and failure mechanisms of reinforced concrete structures under extreme natural eventsaccurate predictions of damage and the failure of reinforced concrete structures are essential when designing and assessing risk especially by federal and state agencies and local communities this research will support structure- and community-level resilience effortsspecifically it will help accurately assess the performance of new and existing structures against natural hazards identify key vulnerabilities prioritize and guide retrofitting upgrade actions and develop and refine new designs to protect people and property from disastersthis research will produce computational simulation tools that will become available to the engineering community to support a wide range of efforts on addressing structure- and community-level resilience challenges sideris said i am very excited and humbled by this award which will allow me to pursue research that will advance our capability to predict structural failures under natural hazards in order to support efforts to improve the resilience of structures and communitiessideris research focuses on infrastructure resilience with particular emphasis on mitigating the effects of natural hazards on the built environment through understanding of the behavior of existing structures and the development of new resilient and sustainable designs realized via novel response mechanisms advanced materials and new construction methods his work lies at the nexus of performance-based engineering computational structural mechanics and dynamics and experimental methods for large-scale structures and materials
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's infrastructure market segment addresses obstacles related to all aspects of land and sea organizational structures and facilities our strengths include infrastructure renewal advanced materials and structural systems deep-water platforms slender and large body hydrodynamics non-traditional materials and deep ocean seafloor engineering
in 1967 prominent aerospace engineer tn edelbaum wanted to know how many velocity impulses – and in what direction and at what time – must be used to allow a spacecraft to fly from its starting point to reach a specified destination with a minimum total impulse its an issue that arises in virtually every space flight mission and dr john junkins and his research team have finally uncovered the rigorous process to answer it over 50 years later how do you optimally fly from a to b asked junkins distinguished professor and holder of the royce e wisenbaker chair in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university that's really the kind of problem i'm dealing with in this research and thats a tough problem that requires us to combine judicious control forces with gravitational field effects to fly from one moving object to another recent advances in low-thrust propulsion means that some spacecrafts are literally propelling for decades of powered flight between objects separated by many astronomical units so the trajectory design problems are getting more difficult as a consequence working alongside dr ehsan taheri an aerospace engineering adjunct assistant professor junkins formulations and algorithms have led to a new way to determine continuous thrust minimum fuel orbit transfers by varying the theoretical maximum-thrust allowed by x amount their approach ultimately reveals the solution for any maximum thrust level as the theoretical maximum thrust is allowed to approach infinity longer coasts appear between ever shorter optimal thrust arcs the limiting case is the answer to edelbaums optimal impulse question for any feasible orbit transfer this research is published in a special edition of the journal of the astronautical sciences dedicated to the 50 glorious orbits of junkins career to date and it also helped to earn him the robert h goddard astronautics award from the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics in may 2019 the work taheri and i did extended and unified existing methodology said junkins who was also recently awarded a 2020 texas a&m engineering experiment station research impact award for his contribution to the development of his space navigation and control research he is also director of the hagler institute for advanced study and a member of the national academy of engineering its really amazing that many researchers and flight control engineers worked on this for a half century continued junkins and even though i was born a bit too late to be a key player in the apollo program during edelbaums time i wasn't born too late to bring closure to an important question he raised in the process i established new tools to design space missions optimally and with computational efficiency
the hagler institute for advanced study provides a catalyst to enrich the intellectual climate and educational experiences at texas a&m university it is a mechanism for attracting world-class talent to the texas a&m and is driven by nominations of national academy and nobel prize-caliber researchers that align with existing strengths and ambitions of the university
over the last few years there has been a significant increase in the use of twitter to share updates seek help and report emergencies during a disaster social media platforms can be instrumental for keeping track of events like damage to personal property or injuries during natural disasters however algorithms keeping track of social media posts to signal the occurrence of natural disasters must be swift so that relief operations can be mobilized immediately a team of researchers led by dr ruihong huang assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has developed a novel weakly supervised approach that can train machine learning algorithms quickly to recognize tweets related to disasters because of the sudden nature of disasters theres not much time available to build an event recognition system said huang our goal is to be able to detect life-threatening events using individual social media messages and recognize similar events in the affected areas the researchers described their findings in the proceedings from the association for the advancement of artificial intelligences 34th conference on artificial intelligence texts on social media platforms like twitter can be categorized using standard algorithms called classifiers most classifiers are an integral part of machine learning algorithms that make predictions based on carefully labeled sets of data in the past machine learning algorithms have been used for event detection based on tweets or a burst of words within tweets to ensure a reliable classifier for the machine learning algorithms human annotators have to manually label large amounts of data instances one by one which usually takes several days sometimes even weeks or months the researchers also found that it is essentially impossible to find a keyword that does not have more than one meaning on social media depending on the context of the tweet for example if the word dead is used as a keyword it will pull in tweets talking about a variety of topics such as a phone battery being dead or the television series the walking dead to build more reliable labeled datasets the researchers first used an automatic clustering algorithm to put them into small groups next a domain expert looked at the context of the tweets in each group to identify if it was relevant to the disaster the labeled tweets were then used to train the classifier how to recognize the relevant tweets using data gathered from the most impacted time periods for hurricanes harvey and florence the researchers found that their data labeling method and overall weakly-supervised system took one to two person-hours instead of the 50 person-hours that were required to go through thousands of carefully annotated tweets using the supervised approach despite the classifiers overall good performance they also observed that the system still missed several tweets that were relevant but used a different vocabulary than the predetermined keywords users can be very creative when discussing a particular type of event using the predefined keywords so the classifier would have to be able to handle those types of tweets said huang theres room to further improve the systems coverage in the future the researchers will look to explore how to extract information about the users location so first responders will know exactly where to dispatch their resources this work is supported by funds from the national science foundation
"what if you could provide emergency responders with technology that could not only potentially save lives but make their work more precise and efficient at the same time through the use of novel human augmentation technologies this concept called learner is on its way to becoming a reality thanks to an award from the national science foundation (nsf) learner (learning environments with augmentation and robotics for next-gen emergency responders) is a mixed-reality learning environment with physical augmented and virtual reality components for users to learn to work effectively with nascent human augmentation technologies this new learning environment will feature powered exoskeletons and head-worn augmented reality interfaces to augment responders physical and cognitive capabilities learner is a personalized learning platform that will incorporate physiological neurological and behavioral markers of learning into real-time emergency response scenario evolution that can be accessed via tiered hardware-based learning experiences ranging from laptops/desktops to vr (virtual reality) and ar (augmented reality) headsets at field houses to haptic suits at in-situ emergency response training at national training centers said dr ranjana mehta principal investigator on the two-year $5 million project and associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and director of the neuroergonomics lab the project is funded through the nsfs newly formed convergence accelerator program which integrates use-inspired team-based science cross-cutting partnerships and multidisciplinary efforts to produce impactful solutions toward national-scale societal challenges ""convergence accelerator is producing true innovation "" said douglas maughan nsf convergence accelerator program head ""all 2019 cohort teams worked hard to further develop their initial concepts strengthen their teams and engage with customers and partners; however phase ii is where we expect to see high-impact deliverables"" throughout the process especially in our evaluation and assessments we are poised toward staying focused practical and user/customer-centric by closely working with the learner advisory board that includes leaders from core technology development companies (eg ford boeing) stakeholders and trainers from emergency response organizations and decision-makers from government agencies (eg federal emergency management agency national fire protection association) said mehta the learner team includes researchers from virginia polytechnic institute and state university the university of florida knowledge based systems inc and sarcos robotics dr jason moats and his team from the texas a&m engineering extension service a world-renowned leader in emergency response workforce development and the national institute of standards and testing are providing guidance content building and testing capability dr saurabh biswas from the texas a&m engineering experiment station is a senior personnel member on the project providing guidance on commercialization the team was among 43 phase i award winners selected in 2019 phase i award winners competed through a proposal and pitch peer-review process and nine were selected for awards in phase ii over the next 24 months the team will advance learning by creating a scalable and replicable platform that will increase the speed of integration and adoption of innovative and emerging human augmentation technologies that benefit the future workforce not only in emergency response but also across other industrial sectors such as manufacturing construction and health care imagine if health care workers are quickly able to learn how to use powered exoskeletons using learner fewer workers would be needed for safer patient handling thereby potentially reducing the spread of covid-19-related infections the award will accelerate our efforts to make immediate impacts to address challenges of national importance such as this said mehta"
the neuroergonomics lab examines the mind-motor-machine nexus to understand quantify and predict human performance when interacting with emerging technologies (unmanned collaborative and wearable systems) in safety-critical extreme environments (eg emergency response space exploration oil and gas) the lab's research advances knowledge of human neuromuscular functioning particularly under stress and in underserved populations
a researcher at texas a&m university is launching a project to better understand how light can affect neurons in the brain dr alex walsh assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering recently received a grant through the air force office of scientific researchs (afsor) young investigator research program the grant supports walshs research to better understand why neurons in the brain are affected by infrared light we know that the infrared light induces a thermal gradient so it heats the neurons it happens very fast within milliseconds and changes the neurons electrical signals walsh said but we dont know how one hypothesis is that the stimulation affects the ion channels in neurons but responses are observed even in cells that lack light- and heat-sensitive channels with the air force grant walsh will pursue research to test if theres a relationship between infrared light and cellular metabolism if the infrared light is impacting how cells produce energy it could be modulating the neurons activity because ion channels need energy to function we use infrared lasers and fiber optics to deliver the infrared light on top of the cell and then use electronics to shape the pulses of the light to be milliseconds in duration walsh said we can apply pulse trains or single pulses
walsh said one challenge that has limited the broader field of studying infrared lights impact on cells is that optimizing parameters is difficult everyone uses different laser sources wavelengths and pulse parameters so comparing studies across different labs is challenging walsh said her lab has applied for a grant to buy multiple laser sources for a head-to-head comparison of different wavelengths rather than using just one which can make replicability difficult being able to stimulate neurons to control cell behavior could have a wide variety of applications in the healthcare field walsh said many diseases ranging from seizures and pain management to heart arrhythmias could be treated by stimulating neurons to turn off another application involves turning the neurons on to interact with medical devices current prosthetic devices are integrated with the brain through electrical stimulation but there are limitations that impact the precision of the connection there may be times we want to stimulate neurons for man-machine interfacing if you have a machine like an artificial leg and you want to be able to control it the infrared light could be a precise way to tune biological responses walsh said she is also interested in learning if infrared light impacts other cell types as this may provide a light-based technology to control cell function
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
in a new study researchers at texas a&m university have described their novel plant-based energy storage device that could charge even electric cars within a few minutes in the near future furthermore they said their devices are flexible lightweight and cost-effective integrating biomaterials into energy storage devices has been tricky because it is difficult to control their resulting electrical properties which then gravely affects the devices life cycle and performance also the process of making biomaterials generally includes chemical treatments that are hazardous said dr hong liang oscar s wyatt jr professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering we have designed an environmentally friendly energy storage device that has superior electrical performance and can be manufactured easily safely and at much lower cost their research is outlined in the june issue of energy storage energy storage devices are generally in the form of either batteries or supercapacitors although both types of devices can deliver electrical currents when required they have some fundamental differences while batteries can store large amounts of charge per unit volume supercapacitors are much more efficient at generating a large quantity of electric current within a short duration this burst of electricity helps supercapacitors to quickly charge up devices unlike batteries that can take much longer supercapacitors have an internal architecture that is more in line with basic capacitors both these devices store charge on metal plates or electrodes however unlike basic capacitors supercapacitors can be made in different sizes shapes and designs depending on the intended application furthermore supercapacitor electrodes can also be built with different materials for their work liang and her team were attracted to manganese dioxide nanoparticles for designing one of the two supercapacitor electrodes manganese dioxide is cheaper available in abundance and is safer compared to other transition metal oxides like ruthenium or zinc oxide that are popularly used for making electrodes said liang but a major drawback of manganese dioxide is that it suffers from lower electrical conductivity
past research has shown that lignin a natural polymer that glues wood fibers together used with metal oxides enhances the electrochemical properties of electrodes however liang said there have been few studies looking into combining manganese dioxide and lignin to leverage both of their useful propertiesto create their electrode liang and her team treated purified lignin with a commonly available disinfectant called potassium permanganate they then applied high heat and pressure to initiate an oxidation reaction that results in the breaking down of potassium permanganate and the deposition of manganese dioxide on lignin next they coated the lignin and manganese dioxide mixture on an aluminum plate to form the green electrode finally the researchers assembled the supercapacitor by sandwiching a gel electrolyte between the lignin-manganese dioxide-aluminum electrode and another electrode made of aluminum and activated charcoal upon testing their newly designed green electrode they found that their supercapacitor had very stable electrochemical properties in particular the specific capacitance or the ability of the device to store an electrical charge changed little even after thousands of cycles of charging and discharging also for an optimal lignin-manganese dioxide ratio the specific capacitance was observed to be up to 900 times more than what has been reported for other supercapacitors liang noted that these supercapacitors are also very light and flexible these properties extend their use as structural energy storage elements in vehicles for example in this study we have been able to make a plant-based supercapacitor with excellent electrochemical performance using a low-cost sustainable method said liang in the near future wed like to make our supercapacitors 100% environmentally friendly by incorporating only green sustainable ingredients other contributors to this research include swarn jha raj likhari and weston stewart from the mechanical engineering department; yan chen from the department of materials science and engineering; siddhi mehta from the texas a&m energy institute; and dr dilworth parkinson from the lawrence berkeley national laboratory california this research was funded by a texas a&m energy institute fellowship
upon testing their newly designed green electrode they found that their supercapacitor had very stable electrochemical properties in particular the specific capacitance or the ability of the device to store an electrical charge changed little even after thousands of cycles of charging and discharging also for an optimal lignin-manganese dioxide ratio the specific capacitance was observed to be up to 900 times more than what has been reported for other supercapacitors liang noted that these supercapacitors are also very light and flexible these properties extend their use as structural energy storage elements in vehicles for example in this study we have been able to make a plant-based supercapacitor with excellent electrochemical performance using a low-cost sustainable method said liang in the near future wed like to make our supercapacitors 100% environmentally friendly by incorporating only green sustainable ingredients other contributors to this research include swarn jha raj likhari and weston stewart from the mechanical engineering department; yan chen from the department of materials science and engineering; siddhi mehta from the texas a&m energy institute; and dr dilworth parkinson from the lawrence berkeley national laboratory california this research was funded by a texas a&m energy institute fellowship
the texas a&m energy institute pursues and supports new approaches for multi-disciplinary energy research education and external partnerships these approaches cross departmental and college boundaries and address all facets of the energy landscape that naturally connect engineering sciences technologies economics law and policy decisions
texas a&m engineering researchers have been awarded $13 million in funding from the us department of energys advanced research projects agency-energy (arpa-e) with the award researchers will focus on the design fabrication and testing of a lightweight and ultra-efficient electric powertrain for aircraft propulsion to reduce the energy costs and emissions of aviation the texas a&m team is led by principal investigator dr hamid toliyat raytheon professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and head of the advanced electric machines and power electronics lab and recent texas a&m graduate dr matthew gardner 19 who is an assistant professor at the university of texas at dallas their multidisciplinary team includes dr prasad enjeti department of electrical and computer engineering; drs dion antao jonathan felts jaime grunlan and bryan rasmussen from the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering; dr moble benedict from the department of aerospace engineering; and dr patrick shamberger from the department of materials science and engineering the teams technology will reach unprecedented peak power density and efficiency via (1) an axial flux motor with lightweight carbon fiber reinforced structural material (2) a gan multilevel inverter (3) a thermally conductive nanocomposite electrical insulation and (4) a two-phase thermal management system with zeolite thermal energy storage to absorb the excess heat generated during takeoff each subsystem is designed for tight integration with the other subsystems to minimize weight the wealth of technical expertise at texas a&m allowed us to form a multidisciplinary team that can approach this problem from every angle to achieve a profound advance in electric powertrains and help enable electric and hybrid-electric aircraft this project will also give texas a&m students invaluable experience solving challenging real-world problems with a multidisciplinary team said toliyat texas a&m received this competitive award from arpa-es aviation-class synergistically cooled electric-motors with integrated drives (ascend) program which works to develop innovative lightweight and ultra-efficient electric motors drives and associated thermal management systems (collectively referred to as the all-electric powertrain) that will help enable net-zero carbon emissions in single-aisle 150-200 passenger commercial aircraft millions of americans travel on single-aisle aircraft every year contributing to continued increases in energy use and emissions by commercial airlines said arpa-e director lane genatowski in the arpa-e release announcing the awards reeach and ascend teams will work to lower these burdens by creating innovative new systems to enable more cost-effective and efficient flight systems for commercial travel
the secureamerica institute led by the texas a&m university system and managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station has released a $4 million project call as part of a nationwide initiative for a secure and resilient us manufacturing and industrial base the secureamerica institute is a private-public partnership converging technology economics and policy to secure the us critical manufacturing sector and defense industrial base through applied research education and workforce development and technology transition the inaugural $4 million project call is in partnership with three manufacturing usa institutes america makes (additive manufacturing) mxd (digital manufacturing) and arm (robotics manufacturing) the manufacturing usa institutes were created by the departments of commerce defense and energy through a 2014 initiative called manufacturing usa the institutes are organized to ensure that the united states is the worlds leader in manufacturing innovation in the coming decades technical topic areas for the project call were established through the industry-facing manufacturing usa partners as well as key university partners including georgia tech north carolina state university the colorado school of mines and the university of california–los angeles the project call will focus on advancing the security and resilience of us manufacturers and their supply chains funding will go to competitively selected projects aimed at developing technologies and sharing best practices for more information click here the secureamerica institute serves as a free agent to the over half-million manufacturing businesses across the united states it is clear that the future of a strong us manufacturing sector is a secure and resilient supply chain ecosystem said rep haley stevens michigans 11th congressional district i look forward to working with the institute on advancing this agenda the secureamerica institute is headquartered at the texas a&m system rellis campus while drawing on a diverse network of experts and facilities in more than 21 states and over 75 private-sector and public-sector partners among leading manufacturers industry groups research labs and universities the institutes initial roster of more than 50 industry partners which includes raytheon technologies ge rockwell sap bp deloitte and amentum ensures that maximum impact is felt across the manufacturing community the team also includes more than 25 academic institutions with a core value of selfless service the texas a&m system is proud to host another institute where the contributions will impact future generations said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the texas a&m system the private-public partnership model works said rob gorham executive director of the secureamerica institute it allows for an extraordinary level of collaboration something critical given the significant challenges facing manufacturers
the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $63 billion through a statewide network of 11 universities a comprehensive health science center eight state agencies and the rellis campus the texas a&m system educates more than 153 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year systemwide research and development expenditures exceeded $1 billion in fy 2019 and helped drive the states economy
two researchers from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university are making strides in developing the next generation of batteries dr perla balbuena gpsa professor and dr jorge seminario lanatter & herbert fox professor have been developing protective layers for safer and longer-life batteries balbuena and seminarios research is currently in phase 2 of the battery 500 project which is supported by the us department of energy (doe) the continuous support of the doe has resulted in significant developments in the understanding and design of advanced battery materials that will further the progress of battery technologies for electrical vehicles for their research the pair was awarded a 2020 texas a&m engineering experiment station's research impact award which recognizes research that has had an impact broadly defined as leading to outcomes that extend beyond conventional boundaries including opening new lines of research solving a long existing problem or producing tools or products that have become widely adopted in practice by industry and/or government the researchers work is focused on the mechanisms of electron and ion transport and degradation reactions of electrolyte materials which have had a profound effect in the development of advanced materials for high-energy density batteries beyond current lithium-ion (li-ion) technologies the problem with lithium-metal batteries going beyond li-ion technologies means that instead of the typical layered intercalation – the movement of lithium ions between the layered materials of the anode and cathode during charge and discharge – materials used in li-ion batteries li-metal is used as one of the electrodes providing a much higher theoretical capacity however stable long-lived li-metal batteries are not yet possible due to multiple issues one of these issues has to do with the interaction between li-metal and the electrolyte solution – the substance through which the lithium ions pass during charging and discharging the extreme reactivity of lithium metal causes the formation of microscopic fibers of lithium (called dendrites) which sprout from the electrode and eventually may short circuit the battery to prevent or mitigate the dendritic growth one of the most important factors yet also one of the least understood is the formation and properties of solid-electrolyte-interphase (sei) layers the continuous passing of electrons between the li-metal anode and a liquid or solid electrolyte causes the electrolyte layer to degrade this degradation results in the formation of multicomponent sei layers on the electrodes in order to be effective the sei films need to act as barriers that stop the transfer of electrons while letting the lithium ions go through and deposit smoothly on the metal surface moving toward stable sei layers and longer-lasting batteries the research conducted by balbuena and seminario has had a strong impact on the development of protective layers for safer and longer-life batteries in particular for the first time the research team was able to explain the sustained growth of sei layers at the surface of anodes in li-ion batteries where the degradation reactions proceed via radical species when the layers thicknesses grow beyond those allowing electron tunneling the team was also able to contribute ideas for tuning/designing protective layers by examining nucleation and growth mechanisms of sei layers derived from the electrolyte material of the battery further work discussed the development of a practical device using these ideas and other new concepts related to ionic transport through the interfacial layer the mechanisms proved by the theoretical and simulation work by balbuena and seminario were confirmed by experimental observations and applied to practical devices
structural damage to any of the nations ailing bridges can come with a hefty price of billions of dollars in repairs new bridge designs promise more damage-resistant structures and consequently lower restoration costs but if these designs havent been implemented in the real world predicting how they can be damaged and what repair strategies should be implemented remain unresolved in a study published in the journal of structural engineering texas a&m university and the university of colorado boulder researchers have conducted a comprehensive damage and repair assessment of a still-to-be-implemented bridge design using a panel of experts from academia and industry the researchers said the expert feedback method offers a unique and robust technique for evaluating the feasibility of bridge designs that are still at an early research and development phase bridges particularly those in high-seismic regions are vulnerable to damage and will need repairs at some point but now the question is what kind of repairs should be used for different types and levels of damage what will be the cost of these repairs and how long will the repairs take these are all unknowns for new bridge designs said dr petros sideris assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering we have answered these questions for a novel bridge design using an approach that is seldomly used in structural engineering most bridges are monolithic systems made of concrete poured over forms that give the bridges their shape these bridges are strong enough to support their own weight and other loads such as traffic however sideris said if there is an unexpected occurrence of seismic activity these structures could crack and remedying the damage would be exorbitantly expensive to overcome these shortcomings sideris and his team have developed a new design called a hybrid sliding-rocking bridge instead of a monolithic design these bridges are made of columns containing limb-inspired joints and segments hence in the event of an earthquake the joints allow some of the energy from the ground motion to diffuse while the segments move slightly sliding over one another rather than bending or cracking despite the overall appeal of the hybrid sliding-rocking bridge design little is known about how the bridges will behave in real-world situations
to find the correct repair strategy we need to know what the damages look like said sideris our bridge design is relatively new and so there is little scientific literature that we could refer to and so we took an unconventional approach to fill our gap in knowledge by recruiting a panel of experts in bridge damage and repair for their study sideris dr abbie liel professor at the university of colorado boulder and their team recruited a panel of eight experts from industry and academia to determine the damage states in experimentally tested hybrid sliding-rocking segment designed columns based on their evaluations of the observed damage the panel provided repair strategies and estimated costs for repair the researchers then used that information to fix the broken columns retested the columns under the same initial damage-causing conditions and compared the repaired columns behavior to that of the original column through computational investigations the panel found that columns built with their design sustained less damage overall compared to bridges built with conventional designs in fact the columns showed very little damage even when subject to motions reminiscent of a powerful once-in-a-few-thousand-years earthquake furthermore the damage could be repaired relatively quickly with grout and carbon fibers suggesting that no special strategy was required for restoration fixing bridges is a slow process and costs a significant amount of money which then indirectly affects the community said sideris novel bridge designs that may have a bigger initial cost for construction can be more beneficial in the long run because they are sturdier the money saved can then be used for helping the community rather than repairing infrastructure this work is funded by the national science foundation other contributors include dr jakub valigura former graduate student researcher from the university of colorado boulder and dr mohammad salehi former graduate student in the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's infrastructure market segment addresses obstacles related to all aspects of land and sea organizational structures and facilities our strengths include infrastructure renewal advanced materials and structural systems deep-water platforms slender and large body hydrodynamics non-traditional materials and deep ocean seafloor engineering
the department of defense (dod) today named a state agency of the texas a&m university system to lead a national consortium for modernizing hypersonic flight capabilities the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will manage a five-year $20 million per-year dod initiative involving many of the nations top research universities the universities will work cooperatively among themselves and with other key research institutions of government national laboratories federally funded research centers and industry the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) will work on everything from basic research to real-world capabilities in hypersonic flight systems the concept is for researchers from all of the institutions to work in close coordination together they will accelerate innovation to address the nations hypersonic needs and nurture the next generation of researchers in aerospace engineering and related fields tell us how we can help protect this nation and well be right there said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system we have experience managing consortiums and our hypersonic research capabilities are second to none the ucah will be managed by tees under the leadership of one of the nations foremost hypersonic researchers dr rodney bowersox professor of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university initial operations will begin under the guidance of an impressive board of national experts from texas a&m the massachusetts institute of technology the university of minnesota the university of illinois at urbana-champaign the university of arizona the university of tennessee space institute morgan state university the california institute of technology purdue the university of california-los angeles and the georgia institute of technology texas a&m has become the hypersonics research center of the nation said dr m katherine banks texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering our researchers and partners are unmatched and our new state-of-the-art facilities will fill critical gaps in us testing capabilities the dod contract comes as the texas a&m system is preparing to build the biggest enclosed hypersonic testing range in the nation as part of the george hw bush combat development complex on the rellis campus in bryan the ballistic aero-optics and materials will complement other cutting-edge hypersonic facilities at texas a&m such as the national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory and the aerospace laboratory for lasers electromagnetics and optics the ucah approach will include a major focus on modeling and testing to facilitate earlier and more certain progress on developing hypersonic systems the ucah will become a collaborative hypersonic ecosystem to bridge the so-called valley of death between promising research possibilities and actual real-world capabilities tees has already identified more than 41 institutions from at least 23 states committed to participating in the ucah participation is expected to increase in upcoming months to include additional institutions from across the country and from australia and the united kingdom this first-of-its kind consortium will be critical to advancing hypersonics research and innovation a key priority of the department of defense said michael kratsios acting under secretary of defense for research and engineering importantly through collaborative industry and academic partnerships it will also accelerate technology transfer and strengthen workforce development to meet the nations future warfighting needs tees currently manages a variety of consortia and brings extensive expertise in experimentation logistics contract management workforce development and protection of national security-related research its all headquartered here thanks to the support of chancellor sharp and the texas a&m system banks said
while wildfires remain an unpredictable threat researchers at texas a&m university are attempting to mitigate that uncertainty by using mathematical and statistical models to identify the most cost-effective and efficient strategies for reducing wildfire risk through vegetation removal or fuel treatment strategies texas a&m is represented by dr lewis ntaimo professor and head of the wm michael barnes ‘64 department of industrial and systems engineering and texas a&m agrilife researchs dr jianbang gan forest management and economics professor in the department of ecology and conservation biology the two texas a&m researchers received $280 000 of a $550 0000 national science foundation grant for this interdisciplinary collaborative project with dr oleg prokopyev in the swanson school of engineering at the university of pittsburgh ntaimo who serves as the projects principal investigator from texas a&m specializes in systems modeling mathematical optimization and simulation with application to wildfire management gans contributions will center on forest economics and management and response strategies to environmental disturbances like climate change and wildfires simulating fires to anticipate risk the diversified expertise from the texas a&m project leaders will help produce outcomes that provide landowners and at-risk communities with alternatives to other potentially more costly methods of wildfire prevention or management fire is a big concern in texas but fuel treatments and fire protection like firefighting are very expensive gan said with this research were trying to come up with ways to minimize fuel treatment and firefighting costs; and most importantly lessen damages from fire to protect human life property and natural resources when left unmanaged vegetation fuels wildfire ignition and spread removing that vegetation through fuel treatment methods such as prescribed burns grazing and tree thinning can help reduce wildfire risk however these management methods come with a price given the ongoing wildfires devastating the western us our research project focusing on fuel treatment planning is very timely indeed ntaimo noted the main goal of our project is to develop mathematical models that will help fire managers and planners with fuel treatment options to minimize the occurrence of potentially large-scale wildfires such as the ones we are seeing today identifying most-effective treatment solutions various factors including population growth urbanization changes in land use and weather variability due to climate change continue to amplify wildfire risk leaving livestock wildlife public and private land and entire communities increasingly vulnerable without appropriate action gan said their models will consider factors such as critical locations of concern in at-risk areas seasonal conditions and spatial patterns of vegetation in order to predict what fuel treatment methods would be most effective under certain conditions and when and how they should be implemented for optimal economic efficiency historical data from the texas a&m forest service will be used to build and test these models the model simulations will allow researchers to anticipate threats and identify optimal solutions for realistic large-scale problems posed by wildfires
a team of researchers is creating mobile robots for military applications that can determine with or without human intervention whether wheels or legs are more suitable to travel across terrains the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) has partnered with dr kiju lee at texas a&m university to enhance these robots' ability to self-sufficiently travel through urban military environments the darpa offensive swarm-enabled tactics (offset) program awarded lee associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and a team of graduate students another opportunity after her prior successful accomplishments on developing a mixed-reality swarm simulator with embedded consensus-based decision making for adaptive human-swarm teaming as part of the offset sprint-3 this project was showcased at offsets third field experiment (fx3) together with other participating teams
i have recently been awarded a new darpa contract to join the offset sprint-5 effort focusing on enhancements to (the robots) physical testbeds lee said through this new project i will develop unmanned ground vehicles with agile and versatile locomotive capabilities for urban military operations lee and her team are developing an adaptable wheel-and-leg transformable robot (α-waltr) that can traverse over varying surfaces including staircases more efficiently the α-waltr will move with wheels or legs depending on their immediate need and will be able to decide for itself which to use
legged locomotion is more versatile but suffers from inherent structural mechanical and control complexities lee said the proposed testbed will be equipped with novel wheel/leg transformable mechanisms which can switch between the two locomotion modes actively adapting to its environment but without needing any additional actuator the team is rapidly developing prototypes and will showcase this new hardware platform at the offset fx5 tentatively scheduled for february 2021
although created for military use the team hopes this technology will transcend this field while the current focus is on defense and other military applications these types of adaptable mobile robots can be applied to many other areas such as space domestic service surveillance and agriculture said lee the offset sprint-5 effort is led by lee along with the help of five graduate students and one undergraduate student chuanqi zheng siddharth sane vishnu kalyanram kangneoung lee sohil parsana and jenna horn
dr michel kinsy has joined the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university this semester as an associate professor with expertise in cybersecurity and a focus on important engineering and computational problems he will also serve as associate director of the texas a&m cybersecurity center cybersecurity incidents are happening at an astonishing frequency scale and sophistication kinsy said the center being part of the texas a&m university system has access to tremendous resources that are almost unmatched anywhere else in the country – chief among them the sheer number and caliber of faculty members engaged in cybersecurity research coupled with the deep-rooted culture of academic excellence and service among the student body as associate director he hopes to develop the centers technical research and development enterprise alongside interim director dr danny davis their goal is to accelerate the centers ascension to becoming the premier academic destination for government agencies and industry entities looking for ahead-of-the-curve solutions for their cybersecurity needs and for students interested in hands-on cybersecurity training there is a level of research that you can engage in at texas a&m that is not readily available in most departments around the country or in the world for that matter kinsy said kinsys core area of research is computer architecture he is especially interested in discovering and creating the set of definitions methodologies and hardware primitives that enable the integrity checking of computing processes the access control and monitoring of system resources and hardware root-of-trust solutions for secure computation – something he calls design for security another central aspect of kinsys research efforts is the translation of basic engineering discoveries into applicable solutions in fact he is one of only a handful of secure systems researchers who can claim that their academic hardware designs have been directly incorporated into commercial and military systems as he starts his career at texas a&m kinsy urges engineering undergraduate students to embrace more mathematics courses such as number theory discrete mathematics logic and linear algebra early on in their academic careers – even students focusing on hardware although i am a hardware researcher these courses form the foundation of my engineering thinking process and my cybersecurity problem-solving methodology he said the cybersecurity field is moving toward security through proofs and not merely by construction due to ever-increasing complexity of our computing systems the main challenge is that if you are not exposed to these courses in a substantial way early on in your academic training by the time you really need them or use them it is often too late
the texas a&m cybersecurity center is dedicated to combating adversaries who desire to harm our citizens our government and our industry through cyber-attacks the center seeks to advance the collective cybersecurity knowledge capabilities and practices doing so through ground-breaking research novel and innovative cybersecurity education and mutually beneficial academic governmental and commercial partnerships working with researchers faculty and industry leaders the center stands committed to making outsized contributions to social good through the development of transformational cybersecurity capabilities
researchers from the texas a&m university college of engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and los alamos national laboratory (lanl) are improving magnesium alloys usability which could mean stronger lighter vehicles with improved gas efficiency this collaboration is made possible by the texas a&m system national laboratories office and lanl drs ibrahim karaman amine benzerga and alan needleman doctoral student wahaz nasim from tees; and dr ricardo lebensohn from lanl are collaborating to improve magnesium alloy manufacturing processes in order to make the alloy easier to use for a variety of applications currently aluminum alloys are most commonly used in aerospace defense and automotive components because they are light and easy to manipulate at room temperature however magnesium is more than 30% lighter than aluminum if magnesium alloys could be fabricated and processed more easily and strengthened through processing then using magnesium alloys in place of aluminum could significantly reduce fuel consumption and carbon footprints and enhance maneuverability in transportation due to the lighter weight and higher specific strength unfortunately magnesium is difficult to manipulate into different forms at room temperature and it is difficult to process the alloys current methods require high temperatures to manipulate magnesium which raises costs and decreases the overall alloy strength through thermomechanical processing methods researchers at tees have the ability to further strengthen magnesium alloys and the potential to increase formability of magnesium alloys at room temperature according to karaman lanl plays an important part in this project because they have one of the best modeling approaches for predicting the behavior of metals the results of their modeling will inform how tees researchers process the magnesium alloy in order to determine the appropriate methods for making it easier to work with the processing methods these researchers are exploring are based on the idea that one can engineer the anisotropy of magnesium alloys anisotropy refers to how substances display variations in physical properties along different material crystal directions and sample axes a simple visual example would be wood wood is easier to split along the grain than across it as benzerga explained it is time to engineer that which we cannot suppress materials scientists have been trying to suppress or minimize the anisotropy of wrought products especially in technologically important lightweight applications such as aluminum alloys and magnesium alloys our goal is not to suppress anisotropy but to engineer it so as to actually improve material performance the processing methods involve heating and pressing or extruding the magnesium alloys at different temperatures and pressing/extrusion rates in order to orient the crystal domains in the metal differently this process forces the grains of the metal to recrystallize in ways that make the alloy easier to manipulate at room temperature lanls modeling techniques allow the researchers to test a variety of processing steps very quickly in comparison with experimental techniques nasim gave the example that over the summer (2020) he was able test over 1 000 methods with the simulations something that would have taken significantly longer if it needed to be done experimentally lanls modeling techniques are also very accessible to researchers outside of the organization and the open access is a huge asset to the science community another aspect of the project involves developing an index that can be used to determine the level of formability necessary for a project thereby the optimal processing method for the alloy for that situation according to lebensohn thats the most exciting aspect the possibility of demonstrating the feasibility of going beyond a trial-and-error edisonian approach to material design combining limited experimentation with advanced modeling and inverse optimization to discover novel processing routes to produce material with superior mechanical properties he said in addition to advances in the field and potential future applications this collaboration has given nasim a unique opportunity in his position as a doctoral student karaman explained that nasim plays a fundamental role in this research both at tees and at lanl nasim shared that he had learned a significant amount about the experimental side of his work at tees but he was missing some fundamentals working with lanl has allowed him to fill the gaps in his knowledge and open up his future career possibilities to both experimental and computational avenues this story originally appeared on the texas a&m system national laboratories office website
"by seeking to understand how tiny droplets behave when subjected to high pressure and temperatures texas a&m university researchers could contribute to the development of more efficient engines for propulsion and energy production applications their project titled ""droplet breakup and vaporization effects in high-speed liquid-fueled combustion "" investigates how liquid droplets break up vaporize and react in detonation waves which may lead to better engine technologies ""one day we may be able to use liquid-fueled detonation waves to power our commercial and military aircraft or to provide more efficient electric power generation "" said dr jacob mcfarland ""understanding how droplets break up can benefit us in other areas as well such as delivering aerosolized medicines more efficiently developing safer methods for destroying chemical or biological weapons mitigating the spread of diseases through airborne droplets and developing more efficient power generation and refrigeration technologies"" mcfarland associate professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is leading the research effort for which he was recently awarded the 2020 young investigator award from the united states office of naval research funding for the project began september 1 and is scheduled to continue for the three-year duration of the award while the rotating detonation engine most commonly used in the propulsion of aircrafts and rockets is the primary focus of the research mcfarland said advances in the technology could also benefit more conventional liquid-fueled engines as well as supersonic-combustion ramjet engines mcfarland said the award is a great honor and opportunity for a young faculty member like himself and that he is excited for the life-long expertise it will help him build in this subject area ""the project will support the development of a new liquid-fueled detonation tube facility and to purchase new instrumentation to allow us to image droplet breakup under these conditions for the first time "" mcfarland said ""it will also support the studies of a post-doctoral researcher and undergraduate researchers to train in this field of research"""
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's energy market segment features innovative solutions to obstacles in energy production processing and consumption our strengths include natural gas fossil and non-fossil-based technologies energy economics and multi-scale energy systems engineering; upstream petroleum engineering technology through industry partnerships; energy consumption optimization in commercial and industrial building operations; power system infrastructure integration with transportation to create energy ecosystems; and turbomachinery performance and reliability in rotor dynamics acoustics seals tribology couplings computational and experimental fluid dynamics heat transfer torsional vibrations materials and finite element analysis
in the september issue of the journal nature scientists from texas a&m university hewlett packard labs and stanford university have described a new nanodevice that acts almost identically to a brain cell furthermore they have shown that these synthetic brain cells can be joined together to form intricate networks that can then solve problems in a brain-like manner this is the first study where we have been able to emulate a neuron with just a single nanoscale device which would otherwise need hundreds of transistors said dr r stanley williams senior author on the study and professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering we have also been able to successfully use networks of our artificial neurons to solve toy versions of a real-world problem that is computationally intense even for the most sophisticated digital technologies in particular the researchers have demonstrated proof of concept that their brain-inspired system can identify possible mutations in a virus which is highly relevant for ensuring the efficacy of vaccines and medications for strains exhibiting genetic diversity over the past decades digital technologies have become smaller and faster largely because of the advancements in transistor technology however these critical circuit components are fast approaching their limit of how small they can be built initiating a global effort to find a new type of technology that can supplement if not replace transistors in addition to this scaling-down problem transistor-based digital technologies have other well-known challenges for example they struggle at finding optimal solutions when presented with large sets of data lets take a familiar example of finding the shortest route from your office to your home if you have to make a single stop its a fairly easy problem to solve but if for some reason you need to make 15 stops in between you have 43 billion routes to choose from said dr suhas kumar lead author on the study and researcher at hewlett packard labs this is now an optimization problem and current computers are rather inept at solving it
but tasks that can send digital machines into a computational tizzy are ones at which the brain excels in fact brains are not just quick at recognition and optimization problems but they also consume far less energy than digital systems hence by mimicking how the brain solves these types of tasks williams said brain-inspired or neuromorphic systems could potentially overcome some of the computational hurdles faced by current digital technologies to build the fundamental building block of the brain or a neuron the researchers assembled a synthetic nanoscale device consisting of layers of different inorganic materials each with a unique function however they said the real magic happens in the thin layer made of the compound niobium dioxide when a small voltage is applied to this region its temperature begins to increase but when the temperature reaches a critical value niobium dioxide undergoes a quick change in personality turning from an insulator to a conductor but as it begins to conduct electric currents its temperature drops and niobium dioxide switches back to being an insulator these back-and-forth transitions enable the synthetic devices to generate a pulse of electrical current that closely resembles the profile of electrical spikes or action potentials produced by biological neurons further by changing the voltage across their synthetic neurons the researchers reproduced a rich range of neuronal behaviors observed in the brain such as sustained burst and chaotic firing of electrical spikes capturing the dynamical behavior of neurons is a key goal for brain-inspired computers said kumar altogether we were able to recreate around 15 types of neuronal firing profiles all using a single electrical component and at much lower energies compared to transistor-based circuits
to evaluate if their synthetic neurons can solve real-world problems the researchers first wired 24 such nanoscale devices together in a network inspired by the connections between the brains cortex and thalamus a well-known neural pathway involved in pattern recognition next they used this system to solve a toy version of the viral quasispecies reconstruction problem where mutant variations of a virus are identified without a reference genome by means of data inputs the researchers introduced the network to short gene fragments then by programming the strength of connections between the artificial neurons within the network they established basic rules about joining these genetic fragments the jigsaw puzzle-like task for the network was to list mutations in the virus genome based on these short genetic segments the researchers found that within a few microseconds their network of artificial neurons settled down in a state that was indicative of the genome for a mutant strain williams and kumar noted this result is proof of principle that their neuromorphic systems can quickly perform tasks in an energy-efficient way the researchers said the next steps in their research will be to expand the repertoire of the problems that their brain-like networks can solve by incorporating other firing patterns and some hallmark properties of the human brain like learning and memory they also plan to address hardware challenges for implementing their technology on a commercial scale calculating the national debt or solving some large-scale simulation is not the type of task the human brain is good at and that's why we have digital computers alternatively we can leverage our knowledge of neuronal connections for solving problems that the brain is exceptionally good at said williams we have demonstrated that depending on the type of problem there are different and more efficient ways of doing computations other than the conventional methods using digital computers with transistors dr ziwen wang from stanford university also contributed to this research funded by the national science foundation the department of energy and the texas a&m x-grants program
with the intensity of the ongoing climate change debate scientists and engineers are looking for cleaner energy sources to replace fossil fuels nuclear energy is one such possibility but innovations are being sought to enhance the promise of clean nuclear energy a team from texas a&m university has established a collaboration to explore the potential of an innovative new type of thorium-based fuel researchers in the nuclear engineering and science center (nesc) at texas a&m and the us department of energys (doe) idaho national laboratory (inl) have partnered with clean core thorium energy (ccte) a chicago-based company to fabricate a proprietary thorium-based nuclear fuel called advanced nuclear energy for enriched life (aneel) this fuel is a combination of thorium and high-assay low-enriched uranium and addresses issues including cost safety proliferation and waste management texas a&m will manufacture the aneel fuel pellets at the nesc following the strict guidelines and quality assurance requirements of the doe and nuclear regulatory commission they will then send fabricated aneel fuel pellets to inl to conduct high burn-up irradiation testing of aneel fuel followed by post-irradiation examination and fuel qualification we are excited for the opportunity to be part of the aneel fuel development to work with our colleagues at inl and ccte to realize a safe and clean baseload energy solution for the world said dr sean mcdeavitt director of the nesc for years researchers have been investigating new ways to make nuclear energy often looking at new types of nuclear power plants however due to the high cost of full-scale demonstrations lengthy irradiation and performance testing and regulatory limitations most of these new nuclear technologies are still decades away from realization despite these challenges nuclear energy is still one of the largest sources of emission-free power in the world generating nearly a fifth of americas electricity and more than half of its clean energy moreover nuclear energy is an abundant clean energy source that can deliver baseload electricity that is needed most in emerging markets
the texas a&m/inl/ccte team is addressing nuclear energy from a different angle by delivering optimal performance in existing heavy water reactor designs with proven competitive performance the new aneel fuel breaks barriers for fuel utilization safety and proliferation resistance necessary to lower the hurdles to deploy nuclear energy when used in small heavy water reactors aneel fuel is ideal for deployment to emerging countries where the need for additional clean energy is most urgent two such existing heavy water reactors are the canada deuterium uranium (candu) and the pressurized heavy water reactor (phwr) these reactors are heavy water-cooled and moderated pressurized water reactors where the nuclear core is contained in hundreds of pressurized tubes they usually employ natural uranium oxide as fuel with heavy water as the moderator (a material used in a nuclear reactor to slow down the neutrons produced from fission) the team feels it is beneficial to use existing reactor technology to minimize the cost and avoid decades-long regulatory hurdles for deployment there are currently 49 operating phwr/candu reactors in seven countries including canada argentina india and china using thorium as the main ingredient also has many advantages in these existing reactors with its higher melting point and lower internal operating temperature thorium is inherently safer than uranium making a core meltdown less likely due to the higher fuel burn-up possible with aneel waste is decreased substantially higher fuel burn-up also means more uranium and plutonium are burned to make energy while the end product is significantly denatured reducing the possible proliferation of the used fuel thorium is also found more abundantly than uranium on earth and can be extracted readily from seawater making it a renewable energy source with this collaboration aneel-fueled phwrs/candus could provide abundant safe and clean energy in order to build a path to development and dignity for emerging nations said mehul shah founder and ceo of ccte
during covid-19 artificial intelligence (ai) has been used to enhance diagnostic efforts deliver medical supplies and even assess risk factors from blood tests now artificial intelligence is being used to forecast future covid-19 cases texas a&m university researchers led by dr ali mostafavi have developed a powerful deep-learning computational model that uses artificial intelligence and existing big data related to population activities and mobility to help predict the future spread of covid-19 cases at a county level the researchers published their results in ieee access the spread of pandemics is influenced by complex relationships related to features including mobility population activities and sociodemographic characteristics however typical mathematical epidemiological models only account for a small subset of relevant features in contrast the deep-learning model developed by mostafavi associate professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering and his urbanresilienceai lab can explain the complex relationship between a larger number of features to forecast the range of increase in covid-19 infections in future days we immediately realized the potential for employing artificial intelligence to complement the existing mathematical epidemiological models mostafavi said we are living in the era of big data and leveraging these big data during crises is providing great opportunities for the development of models and data-driven tools to inform policies a deep-learning model is a subset of machine learning a type of artificial intelligence where computing systems called neural networks learn from large amounts of data by training the deep-learning model with data from a certain time period in this case from march through may 2019 the model identified features to predict the trajectories of another time period june 2019 the researchers deep-learning model accounts for features such as the movement of people within a community census data social-distancing data past case count growth and social demographics to predict the growth of covid-19 cases for each county with 64% accuracy which is twice the accuracy of an untrained model the models greatest accuracy was for seven days into the future the accuracy decreased the further into the future the model predicted one aspect of modeling that is helpful is not the accuracy but evaluating what factors drive the outcomes mostafavi said this model does not identify specific mitigation and response strategies but it can help at different points in time to see which strategies could be effective based on various county-level features knowing which features of the model have the most significant effect on the increase of cases officials can inform developing policies that target those factors if the most critical feature for a county is mobility officials can implement policies like stay-at-home orders the model can also offer insight into the effectiveness of policies after they have already been in place mostafavi discovered that overall the initial travel reduction orders were effective people from less populated counties traveled less to higher-populated cities but the extent of travel in densely populated counties did not change drastically he said the influence of features can change over time for one county and vary from county to county at the onset of the pandemic the researchers saw travel-related and mobility-related factors were important predictors of cases but as time went on they saw other features such as travel to points of interests and social demographic characteristics were more important the outcome is that pandemic mitigation is complicated and policies are not one size fits all in the future mostafavis lab will use new data sets to develop different types of models in addition to the current national-scale predictive surveillance model the team is currently working on an artificial intelligence-based model for city-scale surveillance to predict cases at the zip-code level more importantly they want to predict the factors that influence each zip code so that officials can explore location-specific policies mostafavi said instead of closing restaurants in an entire county officials may close restaurants in only high-risk zip codes his research shows big data and artificial intelligence have the potential to play a key role in improving pandemic surveillance prediction and policy development significant opportunities exist using these big data and ai to contain the existing pandemic and also better prepare and mitigate the future pandemics mostafavi said the research is funded by the national science foundation
sitting atop power transformers are wavy shaped bushing systems that play a critical role in supplying communities with electricity however these objects are also susceptible to breaking during earthquakes once damaged bushings can cause widespread outages and burden the state with expensive repairs in a recent study texas a&m university researchers have shown that during high seismic activity the structural integrity of bushing systems can be better maintained by reinforcing their bases with steel stiffeners also by using probability-based loss assessment studies they found that the economic burden due to damage to bushing systems from earthquakes is up to 10 times lower for steel-reinforced transformer bushing systems compared to other bushing configurations transformer bushing systems are vital to electrical substation networks and these components are especially vulnerable in high-seismic regions like in california or parts of the northeast said dr maria koliou assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering we have conducted a full risk and loss assessment of the impact of damaged bushings in terms of cost and time to recovery for electrical power networks the details of the study are provided in the july issue of the journal structure and infrastructure engineering an electrical bushing is a sleeve-like covering that surrounds a conductor carrying a high voltage electrical current generally found at close proximity to transformers or circuit breakers these systems ensure that electric currents do not leak out of metal wires thus bushings are made of insulators porcelain in particular and are filled with mineral oil despite their ability to withstand strong electric fields bushings are brittle and can crack easily in the event of high seismic activity consequently any damage to them is an electrical hazard more extensive structural injuries to the bushing system can cause widespread power outages and high replacement costs one possible way to mitigate damage and thereby repair is by strengthening the bushing with steel plates just like a strong foundation can improve a buildings stability steel flexural stiffeners as close as possible to the bushing base has been shown to improve bushing stability during earthquakes however koliou said a more comprehensive analysis of the impact of seismic vulnerability on bushing systems in terms of recovery costs has been lacking to address this gap koliou and her graduate student andrew brennan conducted a probabilistic analysis to compare the economic losses incurred from the damage of bushings for different intensities of ground motions they investigated bushings of different geometries representative of medium- and high-voltage scenarios more importantly some bushings had steel plate stiffeners and others did not in their original designs koliou and brennan found that the economic losses for the earthquake intensities considered in the study were 33-55% lesser when the bushings bases are reinforced with steel plates in fact the expected annual losses for bushings without the steel stiffeners were at least 25-10 times larger when subjected to different ground motions our results show that steel stiffeners are effective at preventing bushings from damage but what ‘effective means for a structural engineer can have little meaning for someone who is not we wanted to generalize our findings in more practical terms for stakeholders other than engineers said koliou and so we quantified the benefit of using steel stiffeners in terms of dollar value and the time it would take to recover for a variety of earthquake scenarios which is more easily interpretable
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's infrastructure market segment addresses obstacles related to all aspects of land and sea organizational structures and facilities our strengths include infrastructure renewal advanced materials and structural systems deep-water platforms slender and large body hydrodynamics non-traditional materials and deep ocean seafloor engineering
in the 2019 boeing 737 max crash the recovered black box from the aftermath hinted that a failed pressure sensor may have caused the ill-fated aircraft to nose dive this incident and others have fueled a larger debate on sensor selection number and placement to prevent the reoccurrence of such tragedies texas a&m university researchers have now developed a comprehensive mathematical framework that can help engineers make informed decisions about which sensors to use and where they must be positioned in aircraft and other machines during the early design stage for any control system critical decisions have to be made about which sensors to use and where to place them so that the system is optimized for measuring certain physical quantities of interest said dr raktim bhattacharya associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering with our mathematical formulation engineers can feed the model with information on what needs to be sensed and with what precision and the models output will be the fewest sensors needed and their accuracies the researchers detailed their mathematical framework in the june issue of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers control system letters whether a car or an airplane complex systems have internal properties that need to be measured for instance in an airplane sensors for angular velocity and acceleration are placed at specific locations to estimate the velocity if you want to get sensor accuracy that is two times more accurate the cost is likely to be more than double said bhattacharya furthermore in some cases very high accuracy is not even required for example an expensive 4k hd vehicle camera for object detection is unnecessary because first fine features are not needed to distinguish humans from other cars and second data processing from high-definition cameras becomes an issue bhattacharya added that even if the sensors are extremely precise knowing where to put the sensor is critical because one might place an expensive sensor at a location where it is not needed thus he said the ideal solution balances cost and precision by optimizing the number of sensors and their positions to test this rationale bhattacharya and his team designed a mathematical model using a set of equations that described the model of an f-16 aircraft in their study the researchers objective was to estimate the forward velocity the direction of wind angle with respect to the airplane (the angle of attack) the angle between where the airplane is pointed and the horizon (the pitch angle) and pitch rate for this aircraft available to them were sensors that are normally in aircraft for measuring acceleration angular velocity pitch rate pressure and the angle of attack in addition the model was also provided with expected accuracies for each sensor their model revealed that all of the sensors were not needed to accurately estimate forward velocity; readings from angular velocity sensors and pressure sensors were enough also these sensors were enough to estimate the other physical states like the angle of attack precluding the need of an additional angle of attack sensor in fact these sensors although a surrogate for measuring the angle of attack had the effect of introducing redundancy in the system resulting in higher system reliability bhattacharya said the mathematical framework has been designed so that it always indicates the least sensors that are needed even if it is provided with a repertoire of sensors to choose from lets assume a designer wants to put every type of sensor everywhere the beauty of our mathematical model is that it will take out the unnecessary sensors and then give you the minimum number of sensors needed and their position he said furthermore the researchers noted that although the study is from an aerospace engineering perspective their mathematical model is very general and can impact other systems as well as engineering systems become bigger and more complex the question of where to put the sensor becomes more and more difficult said bhattacharya so for example if you are building a really long wind turbine blade some physical properties of the system need to be estimated using sensors and these sensors need to be placed at optimal locations to make sure the structure does not fail this is nontrivial and that's where our mathematical framework comes in vedang deshpande from the aerospace engineering department is the primary author of this research he worked on this research for his doctoral thesis in bhattacharyas laboratory this research was funded by the national science foundation
john crawford chief financial officer for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and assistant vice chancellor for business management in the college of engineering was recently designated one of seven regents fellow service award winners for 2019-20 by the texas a&m university system board of regents the board established the regents fellow service awards program in 1998 to recognize service extension or research professionals within the texas a&m university system who have made extraordinary contributions to their university or agency as well as to the people of texas these individuals exemplify the commitment to excellence in research and service that sets a&m system employees apart said elaine mendoza chairman of the board of regents i hope their example will inspire others in their own endeavors the selection process for the awards begins with a call for nominations from the chancellor final nominations are put forth to the chief executive officer of each respective entity john has superbly executed his responsibility for oversight of over $300 million in annual budget supporting tees and the college of engineering said dr dimitris lagoudas tees deputy director and senior associate vice chancellor for engineering research in his nomination letter as a key leader supporting the texas a&m engineering response to the covid-19 pandemic he displayed decisive and steady leadership by quickly modifying existing business and financial processes to support remote operations in accordance with state of texas and system guidance in summary john is a tremendous asset for texas a&m engineering and a great ambassador for the texas a&m university system as a whole to date 157 agency professionals have received the regents fellow service award view the complete list of regents award winners
every year an estimated 15 million babies are born preterm (before 37 completed weeks of gestation) and this number is rising current interventions to prevent premature births are not always successful and the health care cost to treat them is over $26 billion per year in the united states alone researchers at texas a&m university are working to produce an organ-on-a-chip model to help prevent these preterm births tissue chips also called organ-on-a-chip or microphysiological systems are hybrid microsystems that contain both microfabricated structures and human cells to mimic the multi-cellular structure of human organs dr arum han professor and presidential impact fellow in the department of electrical and computer engineering and director of the nanobio systems laboratory and also a member of the tissue chip testing center at texas a&m is leading this research along with dr ramkumar menon professor at the university of texas medical branch at galveston they received a $38 million grant from the national institutes of healths (nih) national center for advancing translational sciences (ncats) for their research on developing extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics against preterm birth through the use of maternal-fetal interface on a chip research has shown that fetal immune responses are key mediators triggering spontaneous preterm birth where labor starts early and doctors are not able to stop the labor process this accounts for about 60% of preterm births current prevention strategies do not address fetal immune responses; instead doctors focus on stopping contractions to delay birth which is more of a band-aid approach instead of actually fixing the problem finding a way to reduce inflammation in the tissues at the feto-maternal interface (which helps protect and nourish the fetus) could help maintain a pregnancy and prevent spontaneous preterm birth unfortunately current intervention strategies have not been very effective in treating this problem currently to study preterm birth researchers use very simplistic cell culture models but the feto-maternal interface is a complicated three-dimensional organ structure with many different cell layers all working together to protect the baby throughout gestation han said conventional cell culture systems are two-dimensional and cannot incorporate the many different cellular layers and thus cannot mimic the complicated 3d multi-cellular structure of the feto-maternal interface animal models are also used but most animal models are structurally and functionally different from humans and thus not adequate
approximately 30% of promising medications have failed in human clinical trials because they are found to be toxic despite promising preclinical studies and about 60% of candidate drugs fail due to lack of efficacy ncats in collaboration with other nih institutes and centers and the us food and drug administration is leading the tissue chip for drug screening program to develop tissue chips that more accurately model the structure and function of human organs to better predict drug safety and efficacy in humans more rapidly and effectively as part of this effort ncats has just launched a new $355 million clinical trials on a chip program providing grants to 10 teams to support research in studying diseases and test drugs using organ-chip models han is leading one of the 10 teams organ-on-a-chip systems can more accurately recapitulate the complex 3d structure and functions of organ systems; thus research using such a model system can lead to far superior and more relevant research outcomes han said while organ-on-a-chip research has progressed significantly in the last decade the fetal membrane a key tissue that maintains pregnancy and promotes childbirth has been neglected hans project will develop an organ-on-chip model that reproduces the structure function and responses of the feto-maternal tissue interface the chip will recreate healthy and inflammatory conditions and allow testing of compounds that can inhibit inflammation in this interface han expects their organ-on-a-chip research will make preterm birth research including understanding the mechanisms of preterm birth and new drug development far more effective because the chip is a far more accurate physiological model of a human organ system so the outcome of experimental results will be far more physiologically relevant this could not only save lives but also save billions in health care costs and prevent other preterm-related health issues
"seven engineering faculty members at texas a&m university received faculty early career development program (career) awards from the national science foundation (nsf) for their 2020 funding cycle the nsf career program offers support to early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization activities pursued by early career faculty are expected to build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research each year the nsf presents an estimated 500 career awards totaling around $250 million to early career faculty at us institutions of higher learning museums observatories research labs professional societies and similar organizations associated with research or educational activities this years recipients include: dr faruque hasan assistant professor and kim tompkins mcdivitt 88phillip mcdivitt 87 faculty fellowartie mcferrin department of chemical engineering hasans five-year research project career: synergistic design analysis and learning of intensified process systems aims to systematically detect and analyze the existence emergence and role of hidden synergistic effects in complex systems synergy is the combined effect of cooperative interactions between two or more organizations substances or other agents that is greater than the sum of their separate effects wherever complex systems exist there exists synergy or the potential for synergy hasan argues that studying and understanding synergies could unlock hidden potential across a wide swath of academic disciplines it (synergy) has a very transformative impact beyond chemical engineering said hasan biology materials science economics business and education can all benefit from a deeper understanding of synergistic effects read more about dr faruque hasan's research dr ruihong huang assistant professordepartment of computer science and engineering huangs five-year career project discourse level event-event relation identification aims to create document-level event graphs that identify the relationships (eg temporal and causal relations) between events mentioned anywhere in a document in order to better contextualize real-world events and interpret how and why they happened thus better supporting various event-oriented applications events tend to be described in a complex relationship with other events she said for example a news article describing the events of a protest without information on why it was launched would be considered incomplete read more about dr ruihong huang's research dr abhishek jain assistant professordepartment of biomedical engineering jains project career: modeling human veins and venous pathology with organ-on-chip engineering for basic translational and educational research will further his work to develop new disease models of veins to better understand how these unique structures help our cardiovascular systems function venous diseases are ranked amongst the top cardiovascular causes of death worldwide we have the opportunity to advance this model to prevent future death from pandemics that are actually vascular diseases jain said you could very quickly use these tools to find drugs to find treatments you can save lives by using these devices read more about dr abhishek jain's research dr stephanie paal assistant professorzachry department of civil and environmental engineering paal will use her career award leveraging existing knowledge and artificial intelligence to understand the performance of civil infrastructure under extreme hazard loads to leverage existing knowledge and artificial intelligence to understand the performance of civil infrastructure under extreme loads such as natural or human-made disasters like earthquakes hurricanes or fires""i will focus specifically on the application of ai (artificial intelligence) techniques such as transfer learning by leveraging available relevant large datasets to address the small datasets that are comprised by the development of these new materials and structural designs she said while my research goal focuses on augmenting human knowledge with the artificial my education goal focuses on augmenting current practices with the physical"" read more about dr stephanie paal's research dr matt pharr assistant professorj mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering pharr was awarded nsf support for his work career: electro-chemo-mechanics of li and na metal: toward dendrite- and damage-free metallic anodes of rechargeable batteries his research is investigating lithium and sodium metal anodes and key alloys as potential components of next-generation batteries and how to overcome the challenges of safety and durability currently associated with these chemistries while the electrochemistry of lithium and sodium has been studied extensively at the heart of the issue lies a mechanics of materials problem pharr said unstable deformation occurs during operation producing so-called dendrites and damage materials and mechanics-based studies are thus necessary to enable safe and durable operation read more about dr matt pharr's research dr yang shen assistant professordepartment of electrical and computer engineering through his project career: physics-constrained modeling of molecular texts graphs and images for deciphering protein-protein interactions shen will work on computational methods to unravel how proteins interact in living systems which will allow for a better understanding of how biological systems work this can ultimately lead to the development of therapeutics to combat diseases or illnesses shen will investigate protein-protein interactions so that researchers have a better understanding of how living systems function and how therapeutics can be developed for diseases he is developing algorithms using machine-learning and artificial-intelligence techniques that will treat proteins as multimodal data from which patterns can be mined and insights can be discovered i am very excited that my ideas are supported and the project can be carried on because this is something i feel really devoted to and passionate about he said read more about dr yang shen's research dr ankit srivastava assistant professordepartment of materials science and engineering dr ankit srivastavas project career: constrained slip cracking and instability in extremely anisotropic nanolayered solids will focus on understanding and modeling microstructural-scale deformation and failure mechanisms in nanolayered crystalline materials some of these nanolayered materials hold tremendous promise for technologies where reliable performance is required under extreme environments an integrated experimental and computational approach will allow us to understand and engineer fracture and instability in nanolayered materials to enhance their damage tolerance and enable their use in critical applications srivastava said"
even in the era of smartphones and self-driving cars the grim reality of our ever-modernizing world is that there are communities that still lack electricity and potable water making matters worse these underserved communities are often isolated from centralized power and water treatment plants making them largely dependent on infrastructure development for access to basic amenities researchers at texas a&m university have come up with an economical green solution that can help underprivileged communities with their water and electricity needs their standalone water-energy nanogrid consists of a purification system that uses solar energy to decontaminate water furthermore the setup they said is mathematically tuned to utilize solar energy optimally so that the water filtration is unhindered by the fluctuations of solar energy during the course of the day to serve areas that are remote and isolated the infrastructural cost of laying down new water pipes or setting up an electricity grid is enormous and can take a very long time said dr le xie professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering to overcome these hurdles we presented a cost-effective solution that uses solar energy to both purify water and generate electricity for basic household use the researchers have described their technology in the journal applied energy in the united states the colonias represent one of the many rural low-income communities along the texas-mexico border where basic resources are not readily available since the colonias are very remote their residents consisting of mainly migrant workers are isolated from major utility and water treatment facilities and thus have limited means for electricity and more essentially safe drinking water moreover even methods like boiling water are extremely cost-prohibitive and inadequate boiling water is one of the most expensive ways of decontamination because it takes a lot of energy to heat water said dr shankar chellam professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering also although boiling gets rid of biological contaminants it does not remove many chemical contaminants we needed a solution that could address both these problems at the same time an efficient way to decontaminate water is by passing it through purification systems these machines utilize pumps to push water through a filter however the pumps require electricity which is scarce in the colonias so the researchers looked for a solution that would help with both the power and water requirements of the colonia residents
first to cut the dependence on centralized sources of power and water xie chellam and their team conceptualized an energy-water nanogrid which is a standalone truck-mountable filtration system whose pumps could run on solar-generated electricity next they developed a cost-minimization mathematical scheme called scenario-based optimization framework that minimized the total expenditure for the standalone setup by selecting the type of filter the number and size of solar panels and the size of the solar battery this model revealed that if nanofiltration a type of purification technique was used harvesting solar energy just during peak availability was sufficient to run pumps and purify water in other words the water nanofiltration system was largely unaffected by the day-to-day vagaries in solar energy and could purify enough water to meet the weekly water needs of the community in this way any excess solar power that was not used for filtration could be stashed away either for storage in the battery pack or for other minor basic household needs like charging cell phone batteries overall the researchers noted that although the nanofiltration system is more sophisticated and expensive than other filtration methods its overall merit is that it can successfully desalinate and remove chemicals like arsenic present in local groundwater thus they said nanofiltration is a preferable method for desalination and water purification for other remote regions where the contaminants within the water are not already known we have for the first time used a very rigorous mathematical approach to interlink water purification and energy provision said chellam this lays out a quantitative framework that can be used in not just the colonias but in any scenario based on local conditions other contributors to the research include m sadegh modarresi from burns & mcdonnell in houston who obtained phd from texas a&m; bilal abada from the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m and s sivaranjani from the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m this work was supported in part by the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m energy institute and the national science foundation
"the simple act of blowing through a straw could soon come to symbolize a breathtaking leap forward in the covid-19 fight – and in combating other public health threats including pathogens that could cause future pandemics that simple exhaled breath is key to a new device that uses artificial intelligence (ai) to detect whether individuals should be tested for covid-19 the sophisticated breathalyzer is being developed and tested through a collaboration among a dallas-based company worlds inc the us air force and the texas a&m university system called worlds protect the device takes the form of a kiosk where a person uses a disposable straw to blow into a copper inlet in less than a minute test results can be sent to the persons smartphone worlds inc co-founders dave copps and chris rohde envision worlds protect kiosks being placed outside of factories schools military bases anywhere large groups of people need to be screened for covid-19 or other infectious diseases people can walk up and literally just breathe into the device said rohde president of worlds inc it's completely noninvasive there's no amount of touching and you quickly get a result you get a yay or nay the texas a&m system has invested $1 million in the projects development it is assisting worlds inc with engineering and design prototype building and the mapping of a commercial manufacturing process five prototypes will be tried out this fall on the texas a&m campus getting tech innovations to market is one of our sweet spots said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system this breakthrough could have lasting impact on global public health one of the prototypes was set up thursday on the texas a&m campus to test students and others aggies will be tested using both worlds protect and polymerase chain reaction (pcr) tests results will be compared to test the accuracy of worlds protect and refine its system more than 800 individuals have been tested with worlds protect already at wright-patterson air force base in ohio and brigham young university (byu) results so far suggest that the accuracy of worlds protect is comparable to pcr tests which are considered the best type of test available for diagnosing covid-19 by applying ai we are able to achieve a high level of accuracy and improve every day as more results are analyzed "" said copps ceo of worlds inc we are using pcr tests as our yardstick to see and understand our progress copps and rohde are working with the food and drug administration to obtain emergency use authorization that eventually could allow worlds protect to become an alternative to pcr tests texas a&m system experts are involved from the texas a&m college of engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the secureamerica institute an organization headquartered on the rellis campus that assists with high-tech manufacturing"
rob gorham executive director of secureamerica said the texas a&m system specializes in helping businesses like worlds inc get through the so-called valley of death between an invention and commercial viability there's a lot of work that has to happen gorham said you have to think about standards you have to actually be able to rapidly and with agility circulate your design as well as think through all of the different supply-chain requirements inside the worlds protect kiosk a persons breath is examined for the specific volatile organic compounds that are generated by the body when someone is fighting the virus the test is done with advanced mass spectrometry technology a chemical analysis made smarter by ai worlds inc uses ai software to map the chemical code of a body reacting to the infection the copper inlet and other key interior elements are heated between each breath to clean and sanitize the device so one individual test does not contaminate another individual test dr guido verbeck a doctoral graduate of texas a&m has developed the devices key technology verbeck a university of north texas chemistry professor has worked with worlds inc software engineers since march he is a widely known expert on innovative uses of mass spectrometry his peer-reviewed research on using mass spectrometry to detect covid-19 was accepted and published recently by the royal society of chemistry dr david staack associate professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m has partnered with worlds inc on the development of the breath-capture system for the device the system controls the variables in how people breathe so that the chemical compounds related to covid-19 are more easily identified by the mass spectrometry technology secureamerica is building additional worlds protect prototypes for demonstration at us air force bases and other department of defense locations including lackland air force base in san antonio where the devices could help screen up to 900 airmen weekly who arrive for basic training col charles bris-bois leader of the air force disruptive technology team at the pentagon will coordinate the screening of the airmen in texas he also helped arrange the devices initial testing in ohio and screening now underway at byu copps said additional device testing locations within texas are also being discussed worlds protect software also could be engineered to detect other health problems including future pandemics and bioterrorism threats it is exciting for texas a&m experts to be part of a project with so much potential gorham said we could be saving people's lives and allow the economy to come back because there's a way to detect covid-19 rapidly it means the world literally
in the united states poor diet contributes to more than half of premature deaths related to cardiovascular and metabolic disease including type 2 diabetes a team of researchers at the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) center at texas a&m university are developing a new way to approach diet monitoring to benefit the more than 30 million americans living with type 2 diabetes as well as decrease the risk of progression past prediabetes the team led by principal investigator (pi) dr bobak mortazavi recently received a grant from the national science foundations smart and connected health program to support their work current methods of recording meals and tracking macronutrients carbohydrates protein fat and fiber can be inaccurate and difficult to use many food diaries require manual entry and require an individual to estimate how much of each macronutrient is in food consumed food diaries are invaluable in a number of medical interventions (eg diabetes cardiovascular disease) but they are difficult to maintain since they require manual entry said dr ricardo gutierrez-osuna co-pi on the study and professor in the department of computer science and engineering our objective is to develop algorithms that can predict the macronutrient composition of a meal automatically by analyzing how blood glucose changes after the meal studies have shown that the shape of blood glucose changes based on intake levels of different macronutrients so the texas a&m team plans to use automated machine learning to continuously monitor glucose if researchers can analyze the shape of the blood glucose after a meal they can reverse engineer the results to break down the macronutrient intakemortazavi assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering said one application of this technology would allow individuals to log the makeup of meals even when theyre in places where they have no knowledge or control over the ingredients this will also enable diet intervention studies for the health care industry understanding the changes in glucose response to meals at an individual level and allowing users to understand the differences in their responses based upon the differences in the meal macronutrient compositions enabling clear intervention plans for changing diet and health mortazavi saidthe work funded by the grant will be focused on developing the machine-learning algorithms to predict food macronutrients from glucose responseswe are very grateful for the opportunity to work on this project which we view addresses a critical need in automated diet logging mortazavi said the nsf smart and connected health program has been uniquely positioned to create important new personalized sensing paradigms and analytic strategies that foster clinical care we are excited to get started the researchers are collaborating with the sansum diabetes research institute in california the collaboration will involve data collection efforts and translation of findings toward the end of the project mortazavi said a broader impact of the work is enabling patients and physicians to become better educated on how a body responds and develop a more personalized diet intervention strategy this project would be helpful to clinicians to provide new information to support positive behavior change to reduce the risk of or progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes and would make it easier for patients to passively and accurately track nutritional components of their diet potentially leading to healthier diets and improved health mortazavi said
the researchers are collaborating with the sansum diabetes research institute in california the collaboration will involve data collection efforts and translation of findings toward the end of the project mortazavi said a broader impact of the work is enabling patients and physicians to become better educated on how a body responds and develop a more personalized diet intervention strategy this project would be helpful to clinicians to provide new information to support positive behavior change to reduce the risk of or progression from prediabetes to type 2 diabetes and would make it easier for patients to passively and accurately track nutritional components of their diet potentially leading to healthier diets and improved health mortazavi said
the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) engineering research center was funded by the national science foundation in 2017 paths-up aims to change the paradigm for the health of underserved populations by developing revolutionary and cost-effective technologies and systems at the point-of-care the initial paths-up technologies and systems are designed to help with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease which are leading causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide
more than five million americans are diagnosed with heart valve disease each year and for some of these patients a heart valve replacement may be an inevitable option mechanical valves have proven to be lifesaving for many however due to their design they fall short in their ability to replicate physiological blood flow directly impacting patients' health to further improve the health outcomes of patients with artificial heart valves dr iman borazjani associate professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university uses his understanding of fluid-solid surface interactions to simulate blood flow through mechanical valves as their name suggests heart valves are flaps of tissue that are attached to ventricles and allow unidirectional flow of blood from one side of the heart to the other if a valve becomes impaired due to disease or aging it can be replaced with a mechanical valve however research shows mechanical valves currently cannot exactly replicate a natural heart valve's movement in particular they create unnatural blood flows thereby increasing the patients susceptibility to clotting mechanical valves can replace damaged valves and can restore unidirectional blood flow but we are now finding that the flow patterns are not entirely physiological said borazjani this nonphysiological flow triggers an immune reaction causing clotting and so these patients remain on blood thinners for the duration of their lives to determine the causes of unnatural blood flow borazjani focused on the design of the mechanical valves that are made of polycarbonate a material known for its rigidity and toughness although durable polycarbonate is not flexible unlike a natural valve that can bend or bulge out of the way by the pressure coming from blood flow the leaflets of mechanical valves cannot distort their shape and stay in the middle of the flow the presence of the leaflets in the middle of the orifice when the valve is open causes the blood to form swirls called eddies picture a rock in a river as the water flows past the rock ripples form around the rock borazjani said the eddies created by the leaflets of mechanical valves are conceptually similar they hinder the streamline motion of blood borazjanis research reveals that the eddies are a result of the design mechanical valves that are currently on the market have two leaflets but bioprosthetic (tissue) valves have three leaflets the presence of the rigid leaflets in the middle of the flow creates eddies even when they are fully open however the leaflets of bioprosthetic valves bend out of the way when fully open and do not produce significant eddies looking ahead borazjani hopes their findings lead to new mechanical valve designs that provide not just symptomatic relief to patients suffering from heart valve disease but cuts their dependence on blood thinners over time he is working with a heart valve company novostia sa whose new valve design might achieve this we are still in the early stages of research and development and there is still a lot of work to be done before we can introduce new valve designs to patients said borazjani having said that my team has leveraged its knowledge in fluid-structure interaction and computational fluid dynamics to come a step closer to elucidating the mechanics that guide cardiovascular flow in our body
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
nuclear power plants have supplied about 20% of the annual united states electricity generation since 1990 according to the us energy information administration but that energy creates high-level radioactive waste that has to be stored dr yong-rak kim professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a us department of energy nuclear energy university program grant to develop a novel system in engineered barriers to permanently isolate and contain nuclear fuel waste kim is collaborating with researchers from the sandia national laboratories and the university of nebraska lincoln we need to find a way to store nuclear fuel waste for a long time in a very safe manner this is a huge challenge for many countries where nuclear power plants have been operated kim said we need to find a better material that is less permeable and more resistant to cracking and chemical degradation than conventional materials in challenging geological environments all of the nuclear waste that a power plant generates in its entire lifetime is currently stored on-site in dry casks which is a temporary solution for nuclear waste disposal the fundamental understanding and resulting novel material will vastly improve nuclear waste management and support the enhanced safety and security of nuclear-generated electricity in the united states kim said the new engineered barrier material reinforced by inorganic microfibers will significantly reduce the threat from the long-term disposal of spent nuclear fuel this will enable sustainable nuclear energy cycles in the united states we are very excited to be working on this project kim said the impact is huge as we can better engineer the nations nuclear waste management more safely for the next several centuries it is also a great opportunity to work with the department of energy national laboratories and technology centers
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's energy market segment features innovative solutions to obstacles in energy production processing and consumption our strengths include natural gas fossil and non-fossil-based technologies energy economics and multi-scale energy systems engineering; upstream petroleum engineering technology through industry partnerships; energy consumption optimization in commercial and industrial building operations; power system infrastructure integration with transportation to create energy ecosystems; and turbomachinery performance and reliability in rotor dynamics acoustics seals tribology couplings computational and experimental fluid dynamics heat transfer torsional vibrations materials and finite element analysis
the texas a&m university system board of regents created a new center thursday through which the texas a&m university system and los alamos national laboratory (lanl) collaboratively will address pressing national security issues the joint center for resilient national security will develop capabilities that can be applied to challenges such as maintaining national security in the face of rapidly evolving threats it will leverage the latest academic research – including on topics such as high-performance computing and the behavior of systems under extreme conditions – to bolster capabilities of the national security laboratories researchers from laboratories and universities also will address complex national security problems including how to maintain nuclear deterrence without nuclear-explosive testing the a&m system is here to serve the nation through the new center said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system applying our expertise to solving national security challenges is part of our dna and this joint center is a natural extension of our work los alamos national laboratory director thom mason noted that national security relies on timely responses to changes in the world the resilience and responsiveness of the us national security enterprise is dependent on scientists in the national security national laboratories working with key faculty from us universities like those at texas a&m system campuses the texas a&m system the university of california and battelle memorial institute began the management of los alamos national laboratory in november 2018 as members of triad national security llc
the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $63 billion the system is a statewide network of 11 universities; a comprehensive health science center; eight state agencies including the texas division of emergency management; and the rellis campus the texas a&m system educates more than 151 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year system-wide research and development expenditures exceeded $1 billion in fy 2019 and helped drive the states economy
on thursday the texas a&m system board of regents approved a plan to build the ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range part of the george hw bush combat development complex on the rellis campus in two phases phase one is planned to be 500 meters long construction is scheduled to start in april and be substantially completed by the end of 2022 it will cost $386 million phase one will be able to operate continuously while phase two is being built phase two which will complete the kilometer length is expected to cost about $22 million it will be operational in late 2023 or early 2024 bam will be a world-class engineering feat said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system its one of the big reasons the nations military and defense industry are turning to us for innovation completion of phase one alone will make bam the largest enclosed hypersonics testing range in the us it will give aerospace engineers and other experts in the field enormous new capacity for applied research and testing this two-phase approach is the responsible way ahead said dr m katherine banks vice chancellor for engineering and national laboratories of the texas a&m system no one has ever constructed a kilometer-long facility like this before its in the national interest that we proceed both quickly and carefully for more information see the full press release about the hypersonic tunnel
the texas a&m university system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $63 billion the texas a&m system is a statewide network of 11 universities; a comprehensive health science center; eight state agencies including the texas division of emergency management; and the rellis campus the texas a&m system educates more than 151 000 students and makes more than 22 million additional educational contacts each year systemwide research and development expenditures exceeded $1 billion in fy 2019 and helped drive the states economy
"ocean waves represent an abundant source of renewable energy but to best use this natural resource wave-energy converters need to be capable of physically handling ocean waves of different strengths without capsizing texas a&m university researchers have developed analytical tools that can help characterize the movements of floating but anchored wave-energy devices unlike complicated simulations that are expensive and time-consuming they said their technique is fast yet accurate enough to estimate if wave-energy devices will turn over in an ever-changing ocean environment wave-energy converters need to take advantage of large wave motions to make electricity but when a big storm comes you don't want big wave wind and current motions to destroy these devices said dr jeffrey falzarano professor in the department of ocean engineering we have developed much simpler analytical tools to judge the performance of these devices in a dynamic ocean environment without necessitating massive amounts of simulations or physical model tests that take a lot of time to run and are cost-prohibitive the mathematical tools are described online in the journal ships and offshore structures in july wave-energy devices function in two modes in normal"" mode they convert the energy from tidal waves into electricity thus this mode largely determines whether the design of the wave-energy device is economically efficient however in survival mode or when incident waves cause large motions in the wave-energy devices the performance of the wave-energy devices is largely determined by a system of moorings that anchor the devices to a location at the bottom of the body of water moorings can be of several types including wharfs and anchor buoys and can be arranged in different configurations in addition there are considerable variations in the shape of wave-energy devices making the prediction of whether the device will capsize nontrivial ships come in a variety of shapes and sizes; tankers for example are very different from fishing vessels or other military ships these different geometries affect the ships motion in the water said falzarano similarly the shape of wave-energy devices can be quite diverse"
for the analysis hao wang falzarano s graduate student used a cylindrical wave-energy device this generic shape allowed the researchers to simplify the problem of prediction and extended their analysis to other wave-energy converters of similar shape he also considered three mooring configurations hao used two analytical methods the markov and melnikov approaches to predict the risks of turning over under random excitation more specifically using information from the wave-energy devices geometry the configuration of the mooring system and tidal wave properties the methods yield a graph containing an envelope-like region intuitively if the waves are really big like during a storm and the floating vessel escapes this envelope it will likely turnover the researchers noted that although the analytical models were completely different they yielded almost the same results validating their merit and accuracy they also said that their mathematical approach can be applied to assess the performance of other floating devices such as floating wind turbines the platform for a floating wind turbine is the same as the one for wave-energy devices and so floating turbines can also pitchpole or turnover if the waves are very high said falzarano my group has been leaders in developing methods for predicting ship stability we're now looking at applying those approaches to renewable floating energy devices
for the analysis hao wang falzarano s graduate student used a cylindrical wave-energy device this generic shape allowed the researchers to simplify the problem of prediction and extended their analysis to other wave-energy converters of similar shape he also considered three mooring configurations hao used two analytical methods the markov and melnikov approaches to predict the risks of turning over under random excitation more specifically using information from the wave-energy devices geometry the configuration of the mooring system and tidal wave properties the methods yield a graph containing an envelope-like region intuitively if the waves are really big like during a storm and the floating vessel escapes this envelope it will likely turnover the researchers noted that although the analytical models were completely different they yielded almost the same results validating their merit and accuracy they also said that their mathematical approach can be applied to assess the performance of other floating devices such as floating wind turbines the platform for a floating wind turbine is the same as the one for wave-energy devices and so floating turbines can also pitchpole or turnover if the waves are very high said falzarano my group has been leaders in developing methods for predicting ship stability we're now looking at applying those approaches to renewable floating energy devices
"autonomous vehicles (av) are the wave of the future in the automobile industry and there's extensive discussion about the impacts on transportation society the economy and the environmenthowever less attention has been focused on the potential health impacts of self-driving vehiclestexas a&m university researchers have developed a conceptual model to identify these health impacts systematically they identified 32 transportation-related risk factors that affected health and concluded that 17 could negatively impact public health while eight could have a positive impact there were seven areas of uncertain implications that require further investigationthe researchers recently published their findings in the december issue of sustainable cities and society""a survey on the receptiveness of autonomous vehicles' impacts showed that there is a lack of awareness of the potential health impacts of avs and low perceptions of the importance of av health benefits "" said soheil sohrabi a doctoral student in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering and a graduate researcher at the texas a&m transportation institute (tti) ""on the other hand there are some unintended consequences of avs implementation that need to be studied before avs find their way onto the road""sohrabi with dr dominque lord professor in the department and ap wiley faculty fellow and dr haneen khreis with tti created a conceptual model to systematically identify the pathways through which avs can affect public health the proposed model summarizes the potential changes in transportation after av implementation into seven points of impact: transportation infrastructure; land use and the built environment; traffic flow; transportation mode choice; transportation equity; and jobs related to transportation and traffic safety the changes in transportation are then attributed to potential health impactsin optimistic views avs are expected to prevent 94% of traffic crashes by eliminating driver error but avs operation introduces new safety issues such as the potential of malfunctioning sensors in detecting objects (pedestrians bikes and cyclists vehicles obstacles etc) misinterpretation of data and poorly executed responses which can jeopardize the reliability of avs and cause serious safety consequences in an automated environmentanother possible safety consideration is the riskier behavior of users because of their overreliance on avs for example neglecting the use of seatbelts due to an increased false sense of safetyavs have the potential to shift people from public transportation and active transportation such as walking and biking to private vehicles in urban areas which can result in more air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and create the potential loss of driving jobs for those in the public transit or freight transport industriesthe model serves researchers in the fields of transportation engineering and urban planning as well as automotive makers health sectors and policymakers to identify the potential pathways through which avs can affect public health and to investigate the impacts quantify them and develop policies to mitigate them""given the very fast-paced research related to avs this work provides very good preliminary guidelines about how avs can negatively and positively affect the general health of people before their full deployment lord said hence engineers planners and policymakers can already examine measures and policies that could mitigate the negative health effects""this study can urge public health sectors to enter the discussion about avs and contribute to supporting policies that address the potential negative impacts "" sohrabi said ""it also increases the public awareness of the health impacts of avs that can facilitate the acceptance of av regulations and motivate them to use this new technology and ultimately benefit the greater good""in the future sohrabi said more research is needed to clarify public health impacts of avs more accurately this study was primarily focused on urban areas and does not take into account the affects of avs in rural areas""the discussion about the health implications of avs is new and limited "" he said ""next we will be working on quantifying the health implications of avs"""
in 1989 a geomagnetic disturbance (gmd) event in quebec left six million people without power for nine hours the disturbance caused seven of the electrical devices used to regulate voltage in the grid the static var compensators to be tripped within 59 seconds causing a voltage collapse 25 seconds later gmd events continue to occur and when they do can wreak havoc on the power grid texas a&m university researchers have created a network to help solve this problemwith funding from the governors university research initiative (guri) grant dr thomas overbye professor and o'donnell foundation chair iii in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m led the installation of the first closely spaced magnetometer network in the country – the texas magnetometer networka magnetometer is a device installed in the ground that is used to measure the earths magnetic field at a particular location the magnetometer outputs can be used by the electric power industry to better manage gmd events which are caused by solar flares ejected from the surface of the sun these gmds can cause geomagnetically induced currents (gics) in the grid that could result in voltage collapses and transformer damage leaving many without powerother magnetometers being used in the us are scattered throughout the country often thousands of miles apart the texas magnetometer network contains six magnetometers all in the state of texas overbye who is also the director of the smart grid center at texas a&m is working closely with associate research engineer komal shetye to analyze the data and use that to better understand these types of events the ultimate goal is to lessen the impact of these dangerous occurrences
data is captured every second allowing for the potential to better understand changes in the grid affected by gmds and gics analyzing the data received from the magnetometers is the first step to understanding the events themselves and can help overbyes team recreate past events and do post-event analyses in addition the real data captured by the magnetometers allows the team to validate their grid simulations and subsequent researchbeing in closer proximity to one another than most magnetometers allows the team to gather information that is simply not available with others that are dispersed farther aparthaving such closely spaced arrays is kind of rare especially in the us shetye said the benefit of having closely spaced arrays is that there is information we are getting which is currently missing from these that are currently distributed around the country for example we can study any low-grade differences or any field intensifications which has also been a concern of the research communitythe installation of all six magnetometers was completed in december 2019 overbye and shetyes next steps will be to partner with power grid operators and utility companies to analyze the data and ultimately improve the state of texas power gridthis new magnetometer network is a wonderful resource for texas and the rest of our country overbye said were very much looking forward to getting this data out to industry to help them improve the resiliency of the electric grid
the smart grid center (sgc) brings together several smart grid electric energy efforts already under way in the texas a&m university system and positions the system as a leader in education research and public service in the modernization of the electricity system the center brings together interdisciplinary research teams to develop more innovative and effective smart grid solutions the sgc aims to transform the electrical grid infrastructure in the united states to meet the demands of the 21st century
an essential component of engines used in aircraft and power generation is a gas turbine the efficiency of these machines can be significantly amplified if they are made of materials that can endure harsh environments such as high temperatures these high-performance futuristic turbines will have the potential to benefit not just the aviation and power industry but also consumers by reducing their energy coststo develop such ultrahigh temperature-resistant materials particularly those that can tolerate 1 300 c or at 1 800 c with coatings the us department of energy recently awarded $16 million to 17 projects as a part of phase 1 of the advanced research projects agency-energys (arpa-e) ultrahigh temperature impervious materials advancing turbine efficiency (ultimate) program a team led by dr raymundo arróyave professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m univeristy has received $12 million to investigate a class of metals called refractory high entropy alloys (rheas) that can withstand higher operating temperaturesfinding a ‘printable refractory that would enable the next-generation ultra-efficient gas turbines is quite a scientific and technological challenge that will require that we at texas a&m university and our partners at brown university oak ridge national laboratory ames laboratory and thermo-calc inc push our scientific know-how to the limit we are very excited to take on this project said arróyave arróyaves project batch-wise improvement in reduced design space using a holistic optimization technique (birdshot) aims to identify the chemistry of promising rheas alloys by using an interdisciplinary approach that combines physics-based modeling machine learning and artificial intelligence as well as integrated high-throughput synthesis and characterization platforms arróyave said this investigation has the potential to discover alloys that can withstand the extreme environments retain compatibility with protective coatings and can be 3d printed to make custom parts for gas turbines all of these enhancements can result in significant energy savings in power generation and transportationa major challenge that our society faces is how to do more with less consuming less fossil fuels while sustaining and even augmenting our energy sources and expanding our options for safe faster and more convenient air travel is an imperative if we are to maintain our economy and keep our environment healthy arróyave saidas indicated by the department of energy in their news release phase 1 will have ultimate teams demonstrate proof-of-concept alloy compositions coatings and manufacturing processes through modeling and laboratory scale coupon testing of basic properties as phase 1 concludes the findings of the teams will be reviewed and assessed for additional funding in phase 2 up to $14 million in additional funds will be available to selected teamsi believe that ultimate is just the start of a broad technology development program that has significant opportunities for further development said arróyave finding materials capable of withstanding increasingly harsher operating conditions is an imperative in the energy civilian aerospace and defense sectors and the truth is that much of the science of materials under extreme conditions remains to be done there are very exciting years ahead of us
each waking moment our brains process massive amounts of data to make sense of the outside world thus by imitating the way the human brain solves everyday problems neuromorphic systems have tremendous potential to revolutionize big data analysis and pattern recognition problems that are a struggle for current digital technologies but for artificial systems to be more brain-like they need to replicate how nerve cells communicate at their terminals called the synapses in a study published in the september issue of the journal of the american chemical society researchers at texas a&m university have described a new material that captures the pattern of electrical activity at the synapse much like how a nerve cell produces a pulse of oscillating current depending on the history of electrical activity at its synapse the researchers said their material oscillates from metal to insulator at a transition temperature decided by the devices thermal history materials are generally classified into metals or insulators depending on whether they conduct heat and electricity but some materials like vanadium dioxide lead a double life at certain temperatures vanadium dioxide acts like an insulator resisting the flow of heat and electric currents but when heated to 67 degrees celsius vanadium dioxide undergoes a chameleon-like change in its internal properties converting to a metal these back-and-forth oscillations due to temperature make vanadium dioxide an ideal candidate for brain-inspired electronic systems since neurons also produce an oscillatory current called an action potential but neurons also pool their inputs at their synapse this integration increases the voltage of the neurons membrane steadily bringing it closer to a threshold value when this threshold is crossed neurons fire an action potential a neuron can remember what voltage its membrane is sitting at and depending on where its membrane voltage is with respect to the threshold the neuron will either fire or stay dormant said dr sarbajit banerjee professor in the department of material sciences and engineering and the department of chemistry and one of the senior authors of the study we wanted to tweak the property of vanadium dioxide so that it retains some memory of how close it is to the transition temperature so that we can begin to mimic what is happening at the synapse of biological neurons the transition temperatures for a given material are generally fixed unless an impurity called a dopant is added although a dopant can move the transition temperature depending on its type and concentration within vanadium dioxide banerjee and his teams objective was to imbue a means of tuning the transition temperature up or down in a way reflecting not just the concentration of the dopant but also the time elapsed since it had been reset this flexibility they found was only possible when they used the boron when the researchers added boron to vanadium dioxide the material still transitioned from an insulator to a metal but the transition temperature now depended on how long it remained in a new metastable state created by boron biological neurons have memory of their membrane voltage; similarly boron-spiked vanadium dioxide has a memory of its thermal history or formally speaking how long it has been in a metastable state said dr diane sellers one of the primary authors of the study and a former research scientist in banerjees laboratory this memory determines the transition temperature at which the device is driven to oscillate from metal to an insulator while their system is an initial step in mimicking a biological synapse experiments are currently underway to introduce more dynamism in the materials behavior by controlling the kinetics of the relaxation process of vanadium dioxide said dr patrick shamberger professor in the materials science department and a corresponding author on the study in the near future dr xiaofeng qiang professor in the materials science department and banerjees collaborator on this project plans to expand on the current research by exploring the atomic and electronic structures of other more complex vanadium oxide compounds in addition the collaborative team will also investigate the possibility of creating other neuromorphic materials with alternative dopants wed like to investigate whether the phenomenon we have observed with vanadium dioxide applies to other host lattices and other guest atoms said dr raymundo arróyave professor in the materials science department and a corresponding author on the study this insight can provide us with several tools to further tune the properties of these types of neuromorphic materials for diverse applications this research is funded by the national science foundation and the air force office of scientific research
"both a machine-learning algorithm and an engineer can predict if a bridge is going to collapse when they are given data that shows a failure might happen engineers can interpret the data based on their knowledge of physics stresses and other factors and state why they think the bridge is going to collapse machine-learning algorithms generally can't give an explanation of why a system would fail because they are limited in terms of interpretability based on scientific knowledge since machine-learning algorithms are tremendously useful in many engineering areas such as complex oil and gas processes dr akhil datta-gupta is leading texas a&m university's participation in a multi-university and national laboratory project started sept 2 and initially funded by the us department of energy (doe) with $182 537 to reduce this limitation he and the other participants will inject science-informed decision-making into machine-learning systems creating an advanced evaluation system that can assist with the interpretation of reservoir production processes and conditions while they happen hydraulic fracturing operations are complex and data is continually recorded during production processes so it can be evaluated and modeled to simulate what happens in a reservoir during the injection and recovery processes however these simulations are time-consuming to make meaning they are not available during production and are more of a reference or learning tool for the next operation the doe project will create an advanced system that will quickly sift data produced during hydraulic fracturing operations through physics-enhanced machine-learning algorithms which will filter the outcomes using past observed experiences and then render near real-time changes to reservoir conditions during oil recovery operations these rapid visual evaluations will allow oil and gas operators to see understand and effectively respond to real-time situations the time advantage permits maximum production in areas that positively respond to fracturing and stops unnecessary well drilling in areas that show limited response to fracturing ""it takes considerable effort to determine what changes occur in the reservoir "" said datta-gupta a university distinguished professor and texas a&m engineering experiment station researcher ""this is why speed becomes critical we are trying to do a near real-time analysis of the data so engineering operations can make decisions almost on the fly"
the texas a&m teams first step will focus on evaluating shale oil and gas field tests sponsored with doe funding and identifying the machine-learning systems to use as the platform for the project next they will upgrade these systems to merge multiple types of reservoir data both actual and synthetic and evaluate each system on how well it visualizes underground conditions compared to known outcomes at this point datta-guptas research related to the fast marching method (fmm) for fluid front tracking will be added to speed up the system's visual calculations fmm can rapidly sift through track and compress massive amounts of data in order to transform the 3d aspect of reservoir fluid movements into a one-dimensional form this reduction in complexity allows for the simpler and faster imaging using known results from recovery processes in actual reservoirs the researchers will train the system to understand changes the data inputs represent the system will simulate everyday information like fluid flow direction and fracture growth and interactions and show how fast reservoir conditions change during actual production processes we are not the first to use machine-learning in petroleum engineering said datta-gupta but we are pioneering this enhancement which is not like the usual input-output relationship we want complex answers ones we can interpret to get insights and predictions without compromising speed or production time i find this very exciting
hydraulic fracturing an oil-recovery process in shale reservoirs uses tremendous amounts of fresh water to crack shale rock and free trapped oil and gas some of this water eventually flows back to the surface where it can be reclaimed and treated for reuse however this flowback water flushes out another kind of fluid from the reservoir called produced water since produced water is severely contaminated and considered a waste product it is commonly injected underground where it poses a threat to clean water supplies and ground stability dr berna hascakir associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university is investigating simple and cost-effective methods that can significantly clean produced water so it can further be treated and used in hydraulic fracturing processes saving millions of gallons of fresh water for better use elsewhere hascakir's research is part of a water management project headed by the berg-hughes center for petroleum and sedimentary systems and funded by university lands with a $771 500 grant injecting pressurized fresh water underground is necessary for oil recovery in shale while much of this water remains in the underground reservoir what flows back up to the surface contains dissolved salts minerals and other solids that must be removed before reuse however the fluid flushed out the reservoir known in the industry as produced water has a far greater level of total dissolved solids (tds) because it has been in the reservoir for centuries since produced water is unfit to recycle for human consumption it has been considered for reuse in hydraulic fracturing activities to save available fresh water sources for other needs however hascakir noted that this use of produced water is hardly advantageous unless its tds levels are significantly reduced opening fractures underground by injecting produced water into the tiny shale fractures means the fractures can get blocked immediately by any solids suspended or dissolved in the water said hascakir this becomes an obstacle for oil production pathways the salts in produced water are dissolved as free ions currently these ions can only be removed using advanced water treatment methods such as reverse osmosis ultrafiltration and nanofiltration however the salt levels of produced water are too high for these methods to handle so hascakir must reduce the salinity before they can be used this catch-22 situation makes removing the salts difficult but not impossible
many of the other solids in produced water naturally attract salt and are suspended in the form of colloids which are larger in size than the salt ions hascakir and her student researcher damir kaishentayev are exploring three basic water treatment methods alone and in combinations to remove these larger solids while also reducing salt levels enough for the advanced treatment methods to work hascakirs work is the initial cycle of the berg-hughes study each of her treated water samples goes on for further testing a chemical researcher will determine how well the samples respond to reverse-osmosis and other treatments agricultural researchers will test plant reactions to the treated water economic researchers will calculate water treatment costs based on hascakirs methods to see if it is cost-effective for companies to fund finally geologists will analyze how the treated water could affect groundwater should the two intermingle the project aims to find methods that can treat tremendous quantities of produced water cheaply and effectively so it can be used instead of stored away as waste that might contaminate the environment that goal is crucial said hascakir the majority of new wells drilled in the us are hydraulically fractured with an average of 3-7 million gallons of water used for every hydraulic fracturing treatment the amount of produced water flushed out of reservoirs is increasing rapidly produced water is a huge problem said hascakir if we find a solution a reuse for the university lands produced water it can be applied to every other area using hydraulic fracturing this is really exciting for me because the project connects my environmental engineering background with my petroleum engineering work and is producing a unique solution for hydraulic fracturing water needs
the united states generates a colossal seven million tons of sewage sludge annually enough to fill 2 500 olympic-sized swimming pools while a portion of this waste is repurposed for manure and other land applications a substantial amount is still disposed of in landfills in a new study texas a&m university researchers have uncovered an efficient way to use leftover sludge to make biodegradable plastics in the september issue of the journal american chemical society (acs) omega the researchers have shown that the bacterium zobellella denitrificans zd1 found in mangroves can consume sludge and wastewater to produce polyhydroxybutyrate a type of biopolymer that can be used in lieu of petroleum-based plastics in addition to reducing the burden on landfills and the environment the researchers said zobellella denitrificans zd1 offers a way to cut down upstream costs for bioplastics manufacturing a step toward making them more competitively priced against regular plastics the price of raw materials to cultivate biopolymer-producing bacteria accounts for 25-45% of the total production cost of manufacturing bioplastics certainly this cost can be greatly reduced if we can tap into an alternate resource that is cheaper and readily obtainable said dr kung-hui (bella) chu professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering we have demonstrated a potential way to use municipal wastewater-activated sludge and agri- and aqua-culture industrial wastewater to make biodegradable plastics furthermore the bacterial strain does not require elaborate sterilization processes to prevent contamination from other microbes further cutting down operating and production costs of bioplastics polyhydroxybutyrate an emerging class of bioplastics is produced by several bacterial species when they experience an imbalance of nutrients in their environment this polymer acts as the bacterias supplemental energy reserves similar to fat deposits in animals in particular an abundance of carbon sources and a depletion of either nitrogen phosphorous or oxygen cause bacteria to erratically consume their carbon sources and produce polyhydroxybutyrate as a stress response one such medium that can force bacteria to make polyhydroxybutyrate is crude glycerol a byproduct of biodiesel manufacturing crude glycerol is rich in carbon and has no nitrogen making it a suitable raw material for making bioplastics however crude glycerol contains impurities such as fatty acids salts and methanol which can prohibit bacterial growth like crude glycerol sludge from wastewater also has many of the same fatty acids and salts chu said that the effects of these fatty acids on bacterial growth and consequently polyhydroxybutyrate production had not yet been examined there is a multitude of bacterial species that make polyhydroxybutyrate but only a few that can survive in high-salt environments and even fewer among those strains can produce polyhydroxybutyrate from pure glycerol said chu we looked at the possibility of whether these salt-tolerating strains can also grow on crude glycerol and wastewater for their study chu and her team chose the zobellella denitrificans zd1 whose natural habitat is the salt waters of the mangroves they then tested the growth and the ability of this bacteria to produce polyhydroxybutyrate in pure glycerol the researchers also repeated the same experiments with other bacterial strains that are known producers of polyhydroxybutyrate they found that zobellella denitrificans dz1 was able to thrive in pure glycerol and produced the maximum amount of polyhydroxybutyrate in proportion to its dry weight that is its weight without water next they tested the growth and ability of zobellella denitrificans zd1 to produce polyhydroxybutyrate in glycerol containing salt and fatty acids and found that even in these conditions it produced polyhydroxybutyrate efficiently even under balanced nutrient conditions when they repeated the experiments in samples of high-strength synthetic wastewater and wastewater-activated sludge they found the bacteria was still able to make polyhydroxybutyrate although at quantities lower than if they were in crude glycerol chu noted that by leveraging zobellella denitrificans zd1 tolerance for salty environments expensive sterilization processes that are normally needed when working with other strains of bacteria could be avoided zobellella denitrificans zd1 natural preference for salinity is fantastic because we can if needed tweak the chemical composition of the waste by just adding common salts this environment would be toxic for other strains of bacteria she said so we are offering a low cost a sustainable method to make bioplastics and another way to repurpose biowastes that are costly to dispose of other contributors to this research include fahad asiri chih-hung chen myung hwangbo and yiru shao from the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m this research is supported by the kuwait institute for scientific research the ministry of higher education of kuwait fellowship and the fellowship from the ministry of science and technology of taiwan
hospital-acquired infections are a global health problem that threatens patients treatment in intensive care units patients who require intubation are at a higher risk of contracting life-threatening cases of ventilator-associated pneumonia dr vanderlei bagnato a hagler faculty fellow with the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is testing a new cleaning method that may stop these bacteria from spreading bagnatos work based out of his lab in brazil is focused on using the power of light to destroy bacteria living on the endotracheal tube (ett) a medical device placed in the patients trachea to assist breathing and deliver oxygen into the lungs bagnato said that while the trachea tends to be filled with different bacteria that an individual breathes in these microorganisms can be attacked by the bodys immune system when people are intubated very often they do develop pneumonia because that strange surface has no contact with the bodys circulation so your body cannot fight it bagnato said the immune system cannot get to it thats why its dangerous the doctor has to come with very strong antibiotics which fight an infection theres also concern that aggressive use of antibiotics will lead to more antibiotic-resistant bacteria also referred to as superbugs
as a physicist bagnato professor in the department of physics and materials science at the university of são paulo in brazil works with light as a physical element one common technique he uses is photodynamic inactivation where certain molecules are exposed to light and produce a free radical oxygen molecule which is destructive placing these molecules in the body can help with a variety of treatments including cancerous tumors the same thing happens to the microorganism bagnato said if i put a molecule and the microorganism close together that molecule in the presence of light will produce the reactive oxygen and then destroy the bacteria the aim of bagnatos work is to prevent the progression of an infection as soon as possible after a patient is intubated i consider this a very nice addition to the present technology of artificial breathing because infection developed in the mechanical ventilators is a problem bagnato said bagnatos team has identified the molecule that works best against the microorganisms on the tubes a challenge that involved making sure the identified molecule would harm the bacteria without negatively impacting the patient the molecule sticks to the tube and then a one-millimeter fiber optic is fed into the tube to light and activate the molecule its a low intensity bagnato said this means that if we prevent infection we give a better chance to the patient who is already on the mechanical ventilator his research was recently published in the journal proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america bagnatos team is now using an artificial trachea to evaluate how long the antimicrobial effect lasts since these tubes typically remained placed in a patients trachea for days i hope that in six seven months were going to do the first clinical trial bagnato said
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
with the growing global concerns over climate change scientists are looking for cleaner energy sources and other ways to minimize the carbon footprint in the world researchers at texas a&m engineering and the ecole nationale superieure d'arts et métiers (ensam) are collaborating to look at the materials and products we use daily a carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from the production use and end-of-life of a product or service it is expected that in the next few decades there will be a major transformation in the materials used in civilian and military applications or in the aeronautics automobile and other industries and there will be a need to use materials and products that are more environmentally friendly dr satish bukkapatnam director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) institute for manufacturing systems and dr mohamed el mansori professor in the department of mechanical materials science and manufacturing engineering at ensam combined their complementary strengths to advance the science and technology for biocomposite manufacturing to form the am² transatlantic partnership this partnership aims to effect change to a global manufacturing industry through extensive research collaborations education programs and mutual faculty and student exchange initiatives a biocomposite is a composite material formed by a matrix (resin) and a reinforcement of natural fibers the matrix phase is formed by polymers derived from renewable and nonrenewable resources hemp cotton jute and flax are some common natural fiber reinforcements in biocomposites that have good mechanical properties the work with professor el mansori was initiated to adapt methods for studying the machining process to create precisely shaped slabs of natural fiber composite materials for the emerging industrial applications said bukkapatnam the interest in biocomposites is rapidly growing due to their great benefits they can be used alone or as a complement to standard materials such as carbon fiber a significant market driver for high-volume applications is the potential to disassociate material costs from the fluctuating price of oil and energy el mansori said in many cases biobased materials offer weight reduction added functionality eg damping (restraining of vibratory motion) or impact absorption and occupational health benefits prior to their collaboration both bukkapatnam el mansori and their respective teams had been studying components related to smart manufacturing with various materials systems and manufacturing processes for many years in 2017 they combined their collaborative strengths: texas a&m in smart manufacturing focusing on advanced in situ sensing and ensams strengths in multi-scale modeling and analysis which led to several outcomes
first was the creation of a smart experimental setup to study forces vibrations and acoustic emissions generated during the machining of natural-fiber composite materials and thereby using the signal patterns themselves to understand the physical phenomena underlying the way the material is removed from the surface of the composite material during the cutting process this guided the setting of the various conditions such as the speed at which the tool should move the cut the best orientation of the composite material to achieve an efficient cut and quality products the work also led to the development of mathematical finite element models to simulate how forces are generated during the cutting process and how they vary under the influence of the heat generated during the process el mansori said biocomposites especially those with long continuous fibers present many challenges during near net-shape processing where requirements include accurate dimensional tolerancing drilling holes for assembly and controlled surface characteristics finishing operations such as machining or polishing are mandatory for fabricating the biocomposite part to meet service requirements however finishing operations should not cause excessive damage in order to preserve the required industrial functionality of the biocomposite part (ie mechanical frictional thermal acoustic or damping properties) the main damage source emanates from the severe contact between the abrasive tools and the biocomposite due to the high-generated tribological and thermal stresses addressing these challenges required expertise in multiple areas understanding the mechanism of the cutting process is essential for creating quality products especially those of interest to the automotive industry bukkapatnam said besides the two of us this research effort brought together the expertise of drs jn reddy and bruce tai of mechanical engineering (at texas a&m) and two project associates drs zimo wang and faissal chegdani who have since graduated and now serve as assistant professors in suny binghamton us and arts et métiers france respectively because of the wide range of applications that exist for these natural composites the impact of their research on cutting techniques can be enormous combinations of natural fibers and biobased polymers have been shown to have appealing composite properties offering the enticing prospect that fully biobased composites are an increasing commercial reality el mansori said green image weight savings shorter cycle times scratch resistance and above all a lower (carbon) footprint are important factors for this development plus the demand from designers manufacturers and consumers for environmentally friendly products will inevitably drive the rapid development of other biocomposite materials and products as well and future developments in fully biobased composites of consistent quality natural-fiber products could also be required at an affordable price in appropriate forms for composite molding and secondary mechanical processing technology the next few decades will witness a major transformation in the materials that we use in our daily lives and for various applications bukkapatnam said there will be a major push toward using materials and products that use a minimal carbon and economic footprint and are environmentally benign this research leverages texas a&ms initiatives in smart manufacturing to lead a major thrust toward smart secure and sustainable manufacturing systems these efforts are central to the current transatlantic partnership led by texas a&m and arts et métiers
how has energy consumption changed during the covid-19 pandemic this is a question that researchers in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university are hoping to answer dr le xie professor in the department and his team and collaborators have created a first-of-its-kind cross-domain open-access data hub to track the impact of the pandemic and subsequent social distancing and work-from-home policies on us electricity markets published in the september issue of joule the coronavirus disease – electricity market data aggregation+ (covid-emda+) hub combines data across disciplines that showcase how human and environmental habits have impacted electricity usage theres a lot to take into account when it comes to electricity consumption related to a pandemic and data hubs similar to this one have already been attempted so what makes this one different the covid-emda+ incorporates seemingly extraneous information that turns out to be quite important to our understanding of the impact of the pandemic on the electricity sector the data hub contains five major components: electricity market data public health data weather data mobile device data and nighttime light satellite data weather definitely affects electricity usage said xie for instance texas had quite a hot summer so although everyone was quarantining inside the month of august saw a surge in energy consumption from air conditioners the gps location of mobile devices a dataset that has never before been used in the analysis of the electricity sector helps illustrate patterns in mobility how many people are social distancing versus how many people are still visiting shopping centers
the phenomenon of human mobility became an even greater factor to understanding electricity consumption once nasa published nighttime satellite images of large cities when looking at images of houston and new york city lit up at night from before and during the covid-19 pandemic the stark contrast is clearly visible in manhattan alone the city light at night was dimmed by about 40% between february and april this meant that as quarantine progressed fewer people were venturing outside in the evenings less human mobility meant less electricity needed to keep the busy cities lit this research uncovered a key finding: mobility is a strong indicator of electricity consumption changes in new york the strongest indicator of electricity consumption is the visits to the retail sector – the shopping malls and grocery stores said xie we didnt realize how much that impacts electricity consumption when visits to the retail sector decrease electricity consumption plummets moving forward xie hopes to incorporate data regarding socioeconomic status to shed more light on how the pandemic has impacted economically disadvantaged communities someone who works minimum wage on an hourly basis will be affected much differently than someone who does not have to worry about their next paycheck said xie the hub can serve as a unique lens to examine questions related to socioeconomic disparities and hopefully uncover areas of energy poverty where families may have trouble accessing reliable and affordable energy the data hub is updated daily after careful quality control to provide the most up-to-date information to the public xie and his team hope this data hub can serve as an open-access tool for system operators as well as for state and federal policy makers not only will it help policymakers make more informed decisions when it comes to allocating resources but it will also help society become more aware of how much energy we consume and how we consume it it helps everyone to be more energy conscious and cognizant especially during this once-in-a-lifetime societal crisis said xie
two faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering are among 175 scientists elected to the 2020 class of fellows by the national academy of inventors (nai) the new fellows are dr duncan j maitland director of research and stewart & stevenson professor i in the department of biomedical engineering and dr richard miles tees eminent professor in the department of aerospace engineering maitland and miles were named to the inaugural class of nai senior members earlier this year dr bill mccutchen associate professor and center director for the texas a&m agrilife research and extension center in stephenville was also named a 2020 nai fellow i applaud the nai for selecting these three outstanding researchers as 2020 fellows said dr mark a barteau vice president for research at texas a&m university and an nai fellow this honor recognizes their scholarship talent and innovation as well as their ongoing commitment to texas a&ms mission to produce innovations and solutions that address our worlds greatest challenges maitlands research focuses on novel treatments of cardiovascular disease with an emphasis on stroke his research projects include endovascular interventional devices microactuators optical therapeutic devices and basic device-body interactions and physics including computational and experimental techniques he founded shape memory medical inc to commercialize vascular embolic devices the company has fda-approved products intended to obstruct blood flow to treat vascular abnormalities such as aneurysms that occur in the brain as well as peripheral vessels miles research includes the use of microwaves nanosecond high voltage pulses surface dielectric barrier discharges electron beams magnetohydrodynamic devices and lasers in driving and controlling aerodynamic phenomena; stand-off detection of explosives hazardous gases and greenhouse gases by laser or microwave techniques; flow velocity measurement by laser ionization and molecular tagging; microwave and laser control of flame propagation ignition and lean combustion operation; and development of advanced laser diagnostics for surfaces and for equilibrium and non-equilibrium gases and plasmas miles is a member of the national academy of engineering fourteen current or past texas a&m faculty members have been selected as nai fellows since the organization named its charter fellows in 2012 the nai fellows program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life economic development and the welfare of society election to nai fellow is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors to date nai fellows hold more than 42 700 issued us patents which have generated over 13 000 licensed technologies and companies and created more than 36 million jobs in addition over $22 trillion in revenue has been generated based on nai fellow discoveries the class of fellows will be inducted at the 2021 fellows induction ceremony at the tenth annual meeting of the national academy of inventors in june in tampa florida
"texas a&m university is offering researchers a new flagship high-performance computing platformnamed in memory of programming pioneer vice admiral grace hopper the grace supercomputer powered by dell technologies will serve as a platform for ground-breaking discoveries and innovations in science and engineering at texas a&m the new grace supercomputer is 20 times more powerful than the ada supercomputer it will replace which has served as the lead supercomputer at texas a&ms high performance research computing since 2014""the grace system represents the next generation of supercomputing reshaping how science and engineering are transforming massive data into solutions that address the worlds greatest challenges "" said texas a&m vice president for research mark a barteau ""in the groundbreaking research performed today access to superior high-performance computing is vital to our mission of advancing knowledge and inspiring innovation grace will enable researchers in the texas a&m institute of data science and across the university to tackle problems once thought impractical or impossible"" funding for the grace system comes from texas a&m university and the texas a&m research development fund with contributions from the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m health science center the texas a&m transportation institute and several individual faculty members in the college of engineering and the college of science for more information see the full story about the grace supercomputer"
the texas a&m institute of data science (tamids) serves and fosters collaborations across the university and its affiliated agencies tamids is a joint undertaking of texas a&m university with the texas a&m engineering experiment station and texas a&m agrilife research it is an inclusive umbrella organization for data science and facilitates interactions between researchers in diverse application areas and those with expertise in core methodologies promotes education in data science across the university and pursues outreach to commercial and governmental organizations in the wider data science ecosystem
in a new study published online in the journal american chemical society (acs) applied polymer materials scientists at texas a&m university reported they have designed a hydrogel membrane that may be used to house optical glucose sensing materials toward building a biosensor for monitoring sugar levels in diabetics by incorporating dangling comb-type molecular chains within a type of hydrogel called poly(n-isopropylacrylamide) or poly nipaam for short they showed that the membrane could prevent leakage of small-sized molecules like the ones for glucose-sensing while still allowing glucose to freely diffuse in and out when ready for clinical use the researchers said these membranes could be used to form biosensors that could be easily implanted under the skin of the wrist and might offer a more comfortable alternative to transdermal implants which sit partially outside the skin moreover unlike transdermal implants that need to be changed every few weeks this type of subcutaneous implant may only need to be replaced every few months we've done a lot of work on hydrogel materials looking at mechanical properties and foreign body reactions but our grand goal has always been to use poly nipaam membranes to build a subcutaneous glucose biosensor said dr melissa grunlan professor and holder of the charles h and bettye barclay professorship in the department of biomedical engineering in this study we have been able to fine-tune the diffusion properties of these hydrogels that we have previously identified as a promising candidate for building long-term functioning glucose biosensors poly nipaams are a class of organic hydrogels that have a soft texture like contact lenses one of their attractive properties is that they can undergo cyclical swelling and deswelling with small temperature fluctuations in the body since their surface is dynamically changing with temperature they deter the attachment of cells and biomolecules this active self-cleaning mechanism makes poly nipaam hydrogels appealing for implants since they minimize the attack from the immune system to use the poly nipaam membrane for monitoring blood sugar it must house enough glucose-sensing molecules or assays furthermore the longevity of the hydrogel also depends on the membranes ability to retain these assay molecules without their leaking out think about the nipaam hydrogel like a knitted sweater where the spaces between the meshes are formed by the crossing stitches right now these spaces or windows in the hydrogels are too big letting the assay molecules go right through said grunlan if the assays keep leaching out this way we're not going to have a long functioning sensor
therefore grunlan and her team focused their efforts in fine-tuning the properties of poly nipaams to limit the leaking of glucose-sensing molecules while still allowing the glucose to freely diffuse through the hydrogel to decrease the size of gaps the researchers inserted dangling molecules of different charges lengths and concentrations to the poly nipaam hydrogel when incorporated into the hydrogel these molecules create comb-shaped barriers whose teeth are designed to block diffusion of small assay-sized molecules to test if this comb-like architecture can limit diffusion of glucose sensors they also put within the hydrogel fluorescently tagged molecules called dextrans which served as proxies for glucose-sensing molecules next they placed the hydrogel into water and measured the amount of fluorescence in the water due to the leaking of dextrans from the hydrogel the researchers found that when they used a negatively charged molecule called poly(2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid) or pamp the combs prevented the diffusion of dextrans furthermore they also observed that glucose molecules were unhindered in their flow in and out of the hydrogel grunlan noted that now that they have proof-of-concept that their hydrogels can curb leaking of small dextrans the next step in their research would be to build a biosensor with glucose-sensing molecules contained within the membrane even though our present study did not involve actual sensing molecules it very conclusively and precisely shows you what comb architectures can do for hydrogels to limit diffusion said grunlan this was a systematic study to show the effectiveness of our approach and the possibility of extending our findings to other areas of research other than glucose sensing for which hydrogels with limited diffusion need to be designed contributors to this research include ping dong and bradley schott from the biomedical engineering department and dr kristen means a former student from the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m and current post-doctoral researcher at rice university this research is funded by the robert j kleberg jr and helen c kleberg foundation the national science foundations engineering research center for precise advanced technologies and health systems (paths-up) and the national science foundation graduate research fellowship program
the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) engineering research center was funded by the national science foundation in 2017 paths-up aims to change the paradigm for the health of underserved populations by developing revolutionary and cost-effective technologies and systems at the point-of-care the initial paths-up technologies and systems are designed to help with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease which are leading causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide
to develop effective therapeutics against pathogens scientists need to uncover how they attack host cells first in that effort researchers at texas a&m university have invented a high-throughput cell separation method that can be used in conjunction with droplet microfluidics a technique whereby tiny drops of fluid containing biological or other cargo can be moved very precisely and at high speeds specifically the researchers successfully isolated pathogens attached to host cells from those that were unattached within a single fluid droplet using an electric field other than cell separation most biochemical assays have been successfully converted into droplet microfluidic systems that allow high-throughput testing said dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and principal investigator of the project we have addressed that gap and now cell separation can be done in a high-throughput manner within the droplet microfluidic platform this new system certainly simplifies studying host-pathogen interactions but it is also very useful for environmental microbiology or drug screening applications the researchers reported their findings in the august issue of the journal lab on a chip microfluidic devices consist of networks of micron-sized channels or tubes that allow very controlled movements of fluids recently microfluidics using water-in-oil droplets have gained popularity for a wide range of biotechnological applications these droplets which are picoliters (or a million times less than a microliter) in volume can be used as platforms for carrying out biological reactions or transporting biological materials thus millions of droplets within a single chip facilitate high-throughput experiments saving not just laboratory space but the cost of chemical reagents and manual labor however biological assays can involve different cell types within a single droplet which eventually need to be separated for subsequent analyses this task is extremely challenging in a droplet microfluidic system said han
getting cell separation within a tiny droplet is extremely difficult because if you think about it first its a tiny hundred-micron diameter droplet and second within this extremely tiny droplet multiple cell types are all mixed together he said to develop the technology needed for cell separation han and his team chose a host-pathogen model system consisting of the salmonella bacteria and the human macrophage a type of immune cell when both these cell types are introduced within a droplet some of the bacteria adhere to the macrophage cells the goal of their experiments was thus to separate the salmonella that attached to the macrophage from the ones that did not for cell separation han and his team constructed two pairs of electrodes that generated an oscillating electric field in close proximity to the droplet containing the two cell types since the bacteria and the host cells have very different shapes sizes and electrical properties they found that the electric field produced a different force on each cell type this force resulted in the movement of one cell type at a time thereby separating the cells into two different locations within the droplet to separate the mother droplet into two daughter droplets containing one type of cells the researchers also made a downstream y-shaped splitting junction liquid handling robotic hands can conduct millions of assays but are extremely costly droplet microfluidics can do the same in millions of droplets much faster and much cheaper said han we have now integrated cell separation technology into droplet microfluidic systems allowing the precise manipulation of cells in droplets in a high-throughput manner which was not possible before this work is funded by the defense advanced research projects agency
"dr sara abedi assistant professor and stephen a holditch faculty fellow in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university recently received the national science foundations (nsf) faculty early career development (career) award 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 the award involves monetary support of a five-year research project integrated with education outreach such support aims to help build a basis for a lifetime of faculty leadership and direction in the integration of research and education abedi's research project an integrated experimental-theoretical framework for understanding the multiscale mechanical response of rock-reactive brine interactions will study the impact of reactive brine interactions on the properties of rocks at multiple length scales using advanced experimental and modeling techniques our department is very proud of dr abedi for achieving this very deserved level of recognition "" said department head dr jeff spath ""we look forward to realizing the results of her valuable research this award allows the interaction between rock and reactive brine comes into play in several applications such as carbon sequestration reservoir stimulation stability of cliffs and slopes dam foundation seepage and creep contaminant transport and enhanced geothermal systems to name a few while rocks seem to be a stable substance harsh environments and corrosive brines can erode their mechanical structures characterizing and modeling how rock properties change when exposed to these destructive elements and fluids remains a challenge because of the complex microstructure of rocks and the intricacy of rock-fluid interactions abedi's project will acknowledge the multiscale and nonhomogenous aspect of rock-fluid interactions and aims at gaining a fundamental insight of the coupling between the chemical microstructural and mechanical processes involved abedi an affiliated faculty member in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering tailored her research for a broad application that aligned with the civil mechanical and manufacturing innovation area within the nsf particularly for advancing infrastructure resilience and sustainability ""the research results will lead to better efficiency in resource and energy systems enhanced resiliency in infrastructure systems and improved safety in fluid or gas storage "" said abedi since the integration of education and research is essential in this career project abedi will use a collaborative interdisciplinary and collective educational and outreach plan her goal is to broaden the participation of high school students and underrepresented undergraduate and graduate students in chemical and physical sciences through a program she titled rocks and fluids ""i hope to reach out to the general public as well "" said abedi ""i am so excited that nsf gave me this opportunity"""
we are pulled toward the earths surface at approximately 98 meters per second squared otherwise known as acceleration due to gravity and measured as 1g (g-force) in space there is microgravity or 0g as astronauts leave earth and shoot into space and onto other planetary surfaces their experience is unique as they could be exposed to altered gravity somewhere between 0g and 1g many astronauts have experienced this phenomenon but little is known about how the body reacts to different gravitational environments nasa's human research program is funding two proposals led by dr ana diaz artiles assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university to study the effects of altered gravity on bimanual coordination and cardiovascular and ocular health we cannot recreate microgravity per se but we can manipulate the gravity vector and learn from that diaz artiles said we have proposed to run a set of experiments using devices here on earth to understand gravitational effects on human performance and then extrapolate what would happen in space and on other planetary surfaces her first proposal looks at uncovering the effects of altered gravity on bimanual coordination subjects will participate in a parabolic flight a flight that maneuvers in the shape of a parabola creating gravitational changes ranging from 0g to 18g the subjects will be asked to complete a series of tasks during the parabolic flight that require bimanual coordination the ability to move both upper limbs to manipulate objects or perform tasks an example of bimanual coordination is force coordination (pushing down on force sensors in a specific pattern) or movement coordination (moving both arms in a specific pattern) the tasks will be completed at 0g 25g 5g 75g 1g and 18g to demonstrate the differences in performance at different gravity conditions in a parabolic flight there is true partial gravity diaz artiles said the beauty of this flight is that depending on the parameters of this parabola you can create any partial gravity level that you want with a parabolic flight we will investigate how the gravity level affects a humans ability to perform bimanual coordination tasks at different levels in between 0g and 1g co-investigator dr deanna kennedy from the health and kinesiology department at texas a&m specializes in bimanual coordination and will be aiding in these experiments another critical aspect of parabolic flight research is motion sickness in a spaceflight many astronauts are given medicine for example promethazine to counteract nausea or vomiting this medicine is known to have adverse side effects such as drowsiness and a reduction in the ability to perceive tilt motions little is known about the effects of anti-motion sickness drugs on sensorimotor functions and part of the study will investigate how promethazine affects bimanual coordination since this skill is often critical in tasks like driving a rover and piloting a spacecraft the second proposal will look at the health of subjects who experience altered gravity specifically concerning ocular and cardiovascular changes that have been associated with spaceflight the first way the researchers will investigate the effects of altered gravity is with a standard tilt table by tilting subjects at different angles they will experience multiple gravity vectors in the head-to-toe direction causing pronounced fluid shifts similar to what astronauts experience during spaceflight researchers believe that altered gravity can cause changes in vision such as blurred vision as well as changes to the cardiovascular system such as changes in fluid distribution the researchers will use the tilt table to look at how the blood distributes throughout the body while experiencing altered gravity and how this affects these ocular and cardiovascular functions secondly the researchers will use an lbnp device which stands for lower body negative pressure this device generates negative pressure on the lower parts of your body moving fluid back from your upper body toward your lower body once you put the lbnp on you are subjected to negative pressure pulling the blood down back to your legs diaz artiles said it is a way to create orthostatic stress similar to a gravitational stress we can also generate positive pressure and the opposite effect happens like youre standing upside down we want to generate gravitational dose-response curves and study the difference between altered gravity responses and normal responses at 1g the last method used in this study will be a human-rated short radius centrifuge which is being installed at texas a&m a co-investigator on both research proposals dr bonnie j dunbar professor in the aerospace engineering department and former astronaut will facilitate the move of this centrifuge from the university of texas medical branch in collaboration with nasa the centrifuge spins subjects around simulating gravity effects commonly used in astronaut training the researchers will use this machine to study the health impacts of gravity as well as create gravitational response curves the researchers will then make conclusions based on data collected from all three tools both research projects are in their beginning stages while different in method they look to solve complex problems associated with human health and performance during spaceflight a general theme of my research is understanding gravitational impacts on human performance and this includes multiple physiological systems such as muscular cardiovascular or sensorimotor said diaz artiles i am very excited to conduct this research and gain a better understanding on how gravity affects human performance
traffic lights at intersections are managed by simple computers that assign the right of way to the nonconflicting direction however studies looking at travel times in urban areas have shown that delays caused by intersections make up 12-55% of daily commute travel which could be reduced if the operation of these controllers can be made more efficient to avoid unnecessary wait times a team of researchers led by dr guni sharon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has developed a self-learning system that utilizes machine learning to improve the coordination of vehicles passing through intersections the researchers published their findings in the proceedings of the 2020 international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems many traffic signals today are equipped with signal controllers which are essentially the brains of an intersection they are programmed with various time settings to tell the traffic display when to change colors depending on the time of day and traffic movement this gives the signals the ability to handle fluctuations in traffic throughout the day to minimize traffic congestion recent studies have shown learning algorithms based on a concept in psychology called reinforcement learning where favorable outcomes are rewarded can be used to optimize the controllers signal this strategy enables controllers to make a series of decisions and learn what actions improve its operation in the real world in this instance the result would be a reduction in the buildup of traffic delays but sharon noted that these optimized controllers would not be practical in the real world because the underlying operation that controls how it processes data uses deep neural networks (dnns) which is a type of machine-learning algorithm they are commonly used to train and generalize a controllers actuation policy which is the decision-making (or control) function that determines what actions it should take next based on the current situation its in it consists of several sensors that give information about the current state of the intersection despite how powerful they are dnns are very unpredictable and inconsistent in their decision-making trying to understand why they take certain actions as opposed to others is a cumbersome process for traffic engineers which in turn makes them difficult to regulate and understand the different policies to overcome this sharon and his team defined and validated an approach that can successfully train a dnn in real time while transferring what it has learned from observing the real world to a different control function that is able to be understood and regulated by engineers using a simulation of a real intersection the team found that their approach was particularly effective in optimizing their interpretable controller resulting in up to a 194% reduction in vehicle delay in comparison to commonly deployed signal controllers despite the effectiveness of their approach the researchers observed that when they began to train the controller it took about two days for it to understand what actions actually helped with mitigating traffic congestion from all directions our future work will examine techniques for jump starting the controllers learning process by observing the operation of a currently deployed controller while guaranteeing a baseline level of performance and learning from that said sharon other contributors to this research include dr josiah p hanna research associate in the school of informatics at the university of edinburgh and james ault doctoral student in the pi star lab at texas a&m
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's infrastructure market segment addresses obstacles related to all aspects of land and sea organizational structures and facilities our strengths include infrastructure renewal advanced materials and structural systems deep-water platforms slender and large body hydrodynamics non-traditional materials and deep ocean seafloor engineering
"lithium-ion batteries have enabled the use of numerous technologies from smartphones and tablets to electric vehicles but their convenience and versatility come at a cost the potential for flammability dr olivier mathieu research associate professor in the j mike walker '66 department of engineering at texas a&m university is working with his team to alleviate these concerns and reduce the risk of fire with the support of a three-year national science foundation grant although these battery fires are relatively rare mathieu referenced two high-profile consumer examples to demonstrate the problem's impact: samsung's 2016 recall of nearly 2 million smartphones following several fire events related to the device's battery and general motor's 2020 recall of more than 50 000 bolt electric cars over battery fire concerns during charging if successful mathieu said he hopes consumers will not even realize the research's implementation into their daily lives ""ideally the average person will not see how this research will impact their lives and the batteries of their phones connected devices or electric vehicles will never catch fire "" said mathieu ""they will just see the positive aspect of new technology around them and not experience this particularly dangerous but fortunately rare aspect of it"" mathieu noted that the increased prominence of electric vehicles on the roadways is an added motivation for accelerating the search for a solution particularly in the case of a vehicle collision mathieu said the dangers posed to electric vehicle batteries could be quite different from a traditionally fueled car ""the battery of electric vehicles is large and can be damaged during an impact "" mathieu said ""this could lead to a short-circuit a scenario where the battery will heat up and eventually burn due to the flammable electrolyte"" mathieu said first responders had reported difficulty in putting out the fires caused by these lithium-ion batteries in some cases he said the batteries have even been reported to reignite up to a day later ""preventing the fire from happening in the first place is therefore the best solution and i hope our research will allow identifying the right fire suppressants that will suppress the flammability issue of the electrolyte "" said mathieu to address this problem mathieu and his team are investigating how the electrolytes of lithium-ion batteries burn and searching for the best fire suppressants that could be added to reduce flammability their approach to the problem is largely based on fundamental science allowing them to use predictive models to identify the ideal fire suppressants for the task ""to find fire suppressants that are efficient at the chemical level it is important to understand first the detailed combustion chemistry of the electrolyte "" said mathieu ""therefore our approach consists of studying experimentally the combustion chemistry of the various constituents of the electrolyte developing and validating detailed kinetics models and finally to using this knowledge to identify the best fire suppressants and their ideal concentration"" this approach contrasts with similar research into the same topic which mathieu said often involves long trial and error procedures that typically place the batteries in conditions unlike those it would experience in the real world when overheating moving ahead the most significant challenge mathieu and his team anticipate is applying the necessary concentration of the identified fire suppressant without compromising the performance of the battery ""degrading the battery performance or longevity must of course be avoided "" mathieu said ""this would eventually require working hand-in-hand with a lithium-ion battery manufacturer research in this area is just starting and i hope to be able to have this kind of partnership in the future"" as a research associate professor working primarily with the turbomachinery laboratory mathieu said he and those in his position serve a valuable role in the lab alongside tenure-track faculty in addition to bringing in financial support through research contracts and grants such as this project research professors can be a steady presence in the lab always available to answer the infinite number of questions students have and make things run a bit faster and easier for the group leader in the end mathieu said there is a large one-on-one teaching role in the lab and because they are also devoted to research i think research professors can benefit the department by providing even more exposure at the research level"
the turbomachinery laboratory conducts theoretical and applied research on the reliability and performance of turbomachinery - rotating machinery that extracts or adds energy to fluids the turbo labs acclaimed turbomachinery and pump symposia (tps) is held annually in houston texas and its sister event the asia turbomachinery and pump symposia biennially in singapore both feature a world-class exhibit hall and cutting-edge technical program
gastric bypass surgery is sometimes the last resort for those who struggle with obesity or have serious health-related issues due to their weight since this procedure involves making a small stomach pouch and rerouting the digestive tract it is very invasive and prolongs the recovery period for patients in a new study researchers at texas a&m university have described a medical device that might help with weight loss and requires a simpler operative procedure for implantation researchers said their centimeter-sized device provides the feeling of fullness by stimulating the endings of the vagus nerve with light unlike other devices that require a power cord their device is wireless and can be controlled externally from a remote radio frequency source we wanted to create a device that not only requires minimal surgery for implantation but also allows us to stimulate specific nerve endings in the stomach said dr sung ii park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering our device has the potential to do both of these things in the harsh gastric conditions which in the future can be hugely beneficial to people needing dramatic weight-loss surgeries further details about their device are published in the january issue of nature communications obesity is a global epidemic and associated health problems have a significant economic impact on the health care system in the united states costing $147 billion a year additionally obesity puts people at risk for chronic diseases such as diabetes heart disease and even some cancers for those with a body mass index greater than 35 or who have at least two obesity-related conditions surgery offers a path for patients to not only lose the excess weight but maintain their weight over the long term in recent years the vagus nerve has received much attention as a target for treating obesity since it provides sensory information about fullness from the stomach lining to the brain although there are medical devices that can stimulate the vagus nerve endings and consequently help in curbing hunger these devices are similar in design to a pacemaker that is wires connected to a current source provide electrical jolts to activate the tips of the nerve
however park said wireless technology as well as the application of advanced genetic and optical tools have the potential to make nerve stimulation devices less cumbersome and more comfortable for the patient despite the clinical benefit of having a wireless system no device as of yet has the capability to do chronic and durable cell-type specific manipulation of neuron activity inside of any other organ other than the brain he said the researchers said they were surprised to uncover that the biological machinery coordinating hunger suppression in their experiments was different from conventional wisdom in other words it is widely accepted that when the stomach is full it expands and the information about stretch is conveyed to the brain by mechanoreceptors on the vagus nerve our findings suggest that stimulating the non-stretch receptors the ones that respond to chemicals in the food could also give the feeling of satiety even when the stomach was not distended said park looking ahead he said that the current device could also be used to manipulate nerve endings throughout the gastrointestinal tract and other organs like the intestine with little or no modifications wireless optogenetics and identifying peripheral neural pathways that control appetite and other behaviors are all of great interest to researchers in both the applied and basic fields of study in electronics material science and neuroscience said park our novel tool now enables interrogation of neuronal function in the peripheral nervous systems in a way that was impossible with existing approaches this work has been supported by grants from the interdisciplinary x-grants program a narsad young investigator award from the brain and behavior research foundation the national science foundations engineering research center for precise advanced technologies and health systems (paths-up) the university of washington diabetes research center and the national institutes of health
the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) engineering research center was funded by the national science foundation in 2017 paths-up aims to change the paradigm for the health of underserved populations by developing revolutionary and cost-effective technologies and systems at the point-of-care the initial paths-up technologies and systems are designed to help with chronic diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease which are leading causes of morbidity and mortality world-wide
the national cemetery administration (nca) has awarded a contract to the texas a&m engineering experiment station as part of ncas veterans legacy program (vlp) to engage texas a&m university students in the development of an immersive and interactive digitized national cemetery experience we are excited to be partnering with texas a&m university said under secretary for memorial affairs randy reeves with this contract we will make great progress towards our goal of ensuring that every veterans story continues to be told – even when it is not possible to visit a va cemetery this is an important step in ensuring ‘no veteran ever dies the $249 832 contract will provide support to faculty and graduate students from texas a&ms college of engineering department of geography and department of history researchers will develop geographic information system (gis)-based applications to allow public contributions to memorialize veterans interred in three va cemeteries: houston national cemetery and san antonio national cemetery in texas and alexandria national cemetery in virginia the one-year contract was awarded on sept16 2020 capturing us veterans legacies and enabling virtual visits to their headstones through technology requires a transdisciplinary approach said dr stacey lyle texas a&m engineering and geosciences professor of practice who leads the project by transcending disciplinary boundaries between history geoscience and engineering we will preserve and make accessible the stories of american veterans great contributions to our freedoms for all people to experience students from texas a&ms corps of cadets will contribute biographical research of veterans interred in those cemeteries and others the texas a&m project team will partner with klein independent school district in houston to create gis-based learning opportunities for students and professional development for steam (science technology engineering arts and mathematics) teachers programs like the veterans legacy program are important to our country for many reasons they allow us to preserve our nations history and legacy while using that same knowledge to shape our future said brig gen joe e ramirez jr 79 commandant of cadets at texas a&m im proud that the corps of cadets is involved with this project as guardians of tradition we take pride in honoring our past while preparing leaders for the future for over 140 years the corps has taken great care to preserve and execute the most time-honored traditions at texas a&m it will be no different with the stories of our nations veterans this work will contribute to ncas efforts to enhance the on-site national cemetery experience through technology while also extending that experience to citizens who are unable to visit a national cemetery
"artificial intelligence (ai) and machine learning have transformed our daily lives our phones keep getting smarter we have smart home devices that can control everything in our home by voice command even social media platforms and web browsers have a good understanding of what we really want to see and do based on the data provided in addition to all of this progress artificial intelligence promises something else – large societal-scale engineering systems such as self-driving cars and large-scale power systems with more capabilities dr dileep kalathil assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is working to make these promises attainable kalathil recently received the faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation (nsf) for his proposal titled ""towards a principled framework for resilient data efficient and scalable reinforcement learning for control"" the nsf career award is one of the most prestigious recognitions given to researchers early in their careers kalathil will use his career award to address three major challenges of the ai evolution – resiliency scalability and data efficiency of the system to address these challenges he is using reinforcement learning principles resiliency refers to the robustness and safety integration of an artificial intelligent machine for example if a self-driving car is used to driving conditions in central texas and there is an unexpected snow day the adaptability of that vehicle to adjust to those conditions and continue to drive safely is critical this is an area of machine learning that is not very well addressed kalathil said and that is what reinforcement learning is about reinforcement learning is essentially machine learning for making active decisions additionally kalathil is investigating the issue of scalability so that machine learning systems can be integrated for large-scale technologies such as massive power systems he is also exploring ways in which progress in this area of machine learning can continue even with a limited amount of data to go on in order to make progress data collection is needed however when looking at large-scale systems data is naturally limited due to cost suppose you want to design a machine-learning algorithm to control a self-driving car or drone you will need to fly that drone kalathil said however flying the drone or employing a self-driving car to learn and gather data is not a cheap proposition you need to deal with the idea that in many cases you will have a really limited amount of data kalathil will also utilize an experiential learning approach to integrate this reinforcement learning research into his educational curriculum by working with students on the aggie deep racer project which is a tiny autonomous toy car where reinforcement learning models can be tested the idea is that the reinforcement learning algorithm can be integrated into the toy cars system and the application can be put to practice on a real track one thing i believe we should do as an engineering department is to give students the opportunity of experiential learning kalathil said they should be able to try things work on real-world problems and act as engineers"
in a new study published in nature machine intelligence researchers at texas a&m university have unveiled a machine learning-based algorithm that can reduce graininess in low-resolution images and reveal new details that were otherwise buried within the noise images taken with low-powered beams can be noisy which can hide interesting and valuable visual details of biological specimens said dr shuiwang ji associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering to solve this problem we use a pure computational approach to create higher-resolution images and we have shown in this study that we can improve the resolution up to an extent very similar to what you might obtain using a high beam ji added that unlike other denoising algorithms that can only use information coming from a small patch of pixels within a low-resolution image their smart algorithm can identify pixel patterns that may be spread across the entire noisy image increasing its efficacy as a denoising tool instead of solely relying on microscope hardware to improve the images resolution a technique known as augmented microscopy uses a combination of software and hardware to enhance the quality of images here a regular image taken on a microscope is superimposed on a computer-generated digital image this image processing method holds promise to not just cut down costs but also automatize medical image analysis and reveal details that the eye can sometimes miss currently a type of software based on a machine-learning algorithm called deep learning has been shown to be effective at removing the blurriness or noise in images these algorithms can be visualized as consisting of many interconnected layers or processing steps that take in a low-resolution input image and generate a high-resolution output image
in conventional deep-learning-based image processing techniques the number and network between layers decide how many pixels in the input image contribute to the value of a single pixel in the output image this value is immutable after the deep-learning algorithm has been trained and is ready to denoise new images however ji said fixing the number for the input pixels technically called the receptive field limits the performance of the algorithm imagine a piece of specimen having a repeating motif like a honeycomb pattern most deep-learning algorithms only use local information to fill in the gaps in the image created by the noise said ji but this is inefficient because the algorithm is in essence blind to the repeating pattern within the image since the receptive field is fixed instead deep-learning algorithms need to have adaptive receptive fields that can capture the information in the overall image structure to overcome this hurdle ji and his students developed another deep-learning algorithm that can dynamically change the size of the receptive field in other words unlike earlier algorithms that can only aggregate information from a small number of pixels their new algorithm called global voxel transformer networks (gvtnets) can pool information from a larger area of the image if required when they analyzed their algorithms performance against other deep-learning software the researchers found that gvtnets required less training data and could denoise images better than other deep-learning algorithms furthermore the high-resolution images obtained were comparable to those obtained using a high-energy light beam the researchers noted that their new algorithm can easily be adapted to other applications in addition to denoising such as label-free fluorescence imaging and 3d to 2d conversions for computer graphics our research contributes to the emerging area of a smart microscopy where artificial intelligence is seamlessly integrated into the microscope said ji deep-learning algorithms such as ours will allow us to potentially transcend the physical limit posed by light that was not possible before this can be extremely valuable for a myriad of applications including clinical ones like estimating the stage of cancer progression and distinguishing between cell types for disease prognosis equal contributors to this research include zhengyang wang and yaochen xie from the computer science and engineering department this research is funded by the national science foundation (nsf) the national institutes of health (nih) and the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa)
in a recent study texas a&m university researchers described a new process to purify astatine-211 a promising radioactive isotope for targeted cancer treatment unlike other elaborate purification methods their technique can extract astatine-211 from bismuth in minutes rather than hours which can greatly reduce the time between production and delivery to the patient astatine-211 is currently under evaluation as a cancer therapeutic in clinical trials but the problem is that the supply chain for this element is very limited because only a few places worldwide can make it said dr jonathan burns research scientist in the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear engineering and science center texas a&m university is one of a handful of places in the world that can make astatine-211 and we have delineated a rapid astatine-211 separation process that increases the usable quantity of this isotope for research and therapeutic purposes the researchers added that this separation method will bring texas a&m one step closer to providing astatine-211 for distribution through the department of energys isotope programs national isotope development center as part of the university isotope network details on the chemical reaction to purify astatine-211 in the journal separation and purification technology astatine is one of the least abundant elements on earth furthermore it is short-lived undergoing quick radioactive decay by releasing positively charged alpha particles to achieve nuclear stability hence astatine particularly its isotope astatine-211 is an attractive candidate for a form of radiation therapy for cancer treatment called targeted alpha-particle therapy unlike other forms of radiation that can penetrate deeper into the body damaging both healthy and cancerous tissue alpha particles travel a short distance and lose their energy thus when astatine-211 is positioned in or near cancerous tissue its emitted alpha particles travel deep enough to destroy the cancer cells but leave healthy tissue minimally harmed also the short half-life of astatine-211 or time taken for half of its atomic nuclei to decay means that it loses its radioactivity quickly and is less toxic than other radiopharmaceuticals that are long-lived burns noted however that the half-life of astatine is a double-edged sword since the element has a very low natural abundance astatine-211 is artificially made by bombarding bismuth with high-speed alpha particles once created astatine-211 begins to decay immediately he said starting the clock on how long it will last every 72 hours half of the produced astatine-211 decays away and is no longer usable for treatment said burns so the time taken from when it's produced to when it can go into the patient becomes very critical if a purification process takes 4 hours for example that means its around half of astatines half-life; you've lost a third of the material you've made in an attempt to simplify the purification process burns and his colleagues sought to use nitric acid for extracting the astatine-211 from bismuth for their experiments they filled a chromatography column that is often used for separating mixtures with tiny porous beads infused with organic chemicals called ketones next the researchers made astatine-211 by bombarding bismuth with alpha particles at the texas a&m university cyclotron institute they then dissolved the bismuth in nitric acid when they passed this solution through the chromatography column the researchers found that only astatine-211 formed a chemical bond with the ketones furthermore since the ketones are hydrophobic they were repelled away from nitric acid sticking to the beads the net effect was that bismuth passed through the column whereas pure astatine-211 remained collected within the beads this procedure the researchers found takes roughly 10 to 20 minutes unlike other astatine purification processes that can take hours although a cyclotron is needed in producing medical-grade astatine-211 burns said many hospitals are already equipped with a machine for producing other chemicals like fluorodeoxyglucose f 18 that is needed for positron emission tomography but even for hospitals that might rely on astatine-211 delivery from an offsite location the short purification procedure offers more time for transportation texas a&m university for example is in a really nice geographical location we're right in the middle of five of the top 20 largest cities in america and we're right next to one of the major cancer centers in the united states said burns we are aiming to produce purify and ship astatine in batches large enough for pre-clinical and clinical trials we are not there yet but we have made significant progress through this elegant separation technique other contributors to the research include dr evgeny tereshatov geoffrey avila kevin glennon andrew hannaman kylie lofton laura mccann mallory mccarthy dr lauren mcintosh steven schultz dr gabriel tabacaru amy vonder haar and dr sherry yennello from the cyclotron institute at texas a&m the research is funded by the united states department of energy isotope program managed by the office of science texas a&m university through the bright chair in nuclear science the texas a&m system national laboratories office and us department of energy
the nuclear engineering and science center seeks to improve the health wellbeing and environment of mankind through the application of nuclear technology the center provides services to researchers and/or faculty from texas a&m university other colleges and universities government agencies and private industry the center is recognized primarily for providing radioisotopes and other nuclear irradiation services for research academic medical and industrial applications and as a teaching and nuclear training facility
electric grids are an indispensable infrastructure as evidenced this week by winter storms that have left an estimated 3 million texans without power in dangerously cold temperatures the electric reliability council of texas (ercot) the electric grid operator for the state lost control of the power supply this week prompting gov greg abbott to launch an investigation while residents and business owners across the state demanded accountability on wednesday the fourth day of the historic storm officials continued rolling blackouts to avoid wider outages dr thomas overbye a texas a&m university professor of electrical and computer engineering says its the kind of rare event that the smart grid center is focused on preparing the electric grid to handle i think we unfortunately found out that the electric grid and the coupled natural gas infrastructure were not well prepared to deal with this rare but not unprecedented event said overbye the centers director the extreme cold caused a large increase in usage of electric heating while at the same time many of the states natural gas-fired power plants were reportedly knocked offline ercot controls about 85 percent of the states energy grid which is operated independently from the rest of the country while it is designed to handle millions of people blasting their air conditioners during sweltering texas summers record-breaking cold weather pushed the grid to its breaking point the electric load on sunday night was 69 000 megawatts to put that in perspective the all-time maximum for ercot set on a hot afternoon was 74 500 megawatts overbye said usually the electric load is a lot lower on the weekends than on weekdays so to see 69 000 megawatts on a sunday evening is unprecedented he said another factor: utilities like ercot forecast future demands to estimate the amount of generation resources that will be needed they also schedule maintenance for generating plants overbye said in a month like february when sustained frigid temperatures arent usually expected it would not be unusual for some generating plants to be offline for maintenance at this point of course the key is we want to get the generation back on quickly at the same time he said its important to understand that while ercot oversees operation of the power grid the entity doesnt own the assets on tuesday gov abbott called for emergency reform of ercot saying the operator has been anything but reliable over the past 48 hours probably where a lot of the investigation is going to focus on is ‘how come so many plants failed to operate in these temperatures especially given that reports following a february 2011 cold snap called for such winterization' overbye said this directly relates to the smart grid centers focus of future-proofing the electric grid researchers at the center which is a division of the texas a&m engineering experiment station and separate from the state and entities handling the power cuts aim to find ways to make the grid more reliable and resilient the idea is regardless of how the future evolves we will have an electric grid that is prepared he said one of the things that were working on now is the advantages and potential problems with this coming synergy of electricity and transportation as electric vehicles grow in popularity one shortcoming will be the inability to charge a car in the event that there is no electricity answering the question of how to solve this problem in a reliable resilient and equitable way is among the focuses of the center infrastructure like the electric grid can be hardened to deal with these low frequency but high impact events as a society we just have to decide how we want to deal with that cost overbye said the smart grid center is already addressing these sorts of issues another conversation that will likely result: the separation of texas power grid from the rest of the country overbye said this has come with both advantages and drawbacks if we had been interconnected for this particular event we would have been able to bring in power from primarily the eastern interconnect and that would have helped in this situation he said with being interconnected the pluses are we could buy and sell electricity in a larger market and we could also get and give help in times of need disadvantages are that blackouts or cascading events from elsewhere in the grid could come into texas and there certainly could be much more federal regulation in addition to its research goals the smart grid center can also assist the state in developing a smarter and more resilient electric grid he said were certainly willing and have the expertise to help texas and the rest of the country deal with electric grid issues and can provide technical expertise to decision makers moving forward overbye said
among the many avenues that viruses can use to infect humans drinking water may pose only a tiny risk for spreading certain viruses like the coronavirus however in cases where there is unauthorized wastewater disposal or other events of inadvertent mixing of wastewater with water sources the possibility of transmission through drinking water remains unknown using a surrogate of the coronavirus that only infects bacteria researchers at texas a&m university have now presented strong evidence that existing water purification plants can easily reduce vast quantities of the virus thereby protecting our household water from such contagions in particular the researchers showed that the water purification step called coagulation could alone get rid of 99999% of the virus markedly decontaminating water for consumption we did not want to wait till drinking water became a potential cause for concern for coronavirus transmission said dr shankar chellam professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering this study shows that decontamination technologies that are already in place in water treatment facilities can remove or inactivate the coronavirus and other viruses that are structurally similar details of their study were published in the american chemical society journal environmental science and technology viruses can be categorized between two structural types: those that have an outer fortress called an envelope and those that do not this envelope consisting of a lipid bilayer and attached proteins has multiple functions including aiding the virus in entering into host cells several infamous viruses have a protective envelope including coronaviruses and the ebola virus studies have found both enveloped and nonenveloped viruses in wastewater however most research has solely focused on the survival of nonenveloped viruses after wastewater and water treatment it is well known that wastewater mixes with drinking water supplies in fact in many countries including the united states wastewater is purified and used as drinking water said chellam if enveloped viruses persist in wastewater there could be a minuscule chance that these viruses make it into our drinking water supplies we just dont know for sure at treatment facilities raw water generally undergoes a three-step purification process: coagulation followed by filtration and finally disinfection in the coagulation step certain metallic salts are added to initiate particles suspended in water to join together into millimeter-sized clumps these clumps then settle down as sediment and are easily separated from the water and so chellam and his collaborators tested to see if enveloped viruses also assembled into bundles during coagulation for their experiments they added a surrogate of the coronavirus ɸ6 a strain that specifically infects bacteria to clean water next they separately tested the action of a coagulant commonly used in water treatment plants after coagulation they studied small samples of the virus-infused water under an electron microscope and found that ɸ6 assembled on the coagulants forming clusters they then checked the presence of infectious viruses in the water after removing the clumps and they found there was a 100 000 reduction the us environmental protection agency mandates 9999% of the viruses must be removed or inactivated from drinking water and we found that even without filtration and chlorination we were getting rid of 99999% of the viruses said chellam the researchers noted that although they used ɸ6 for their study the results are readily generalizable to other viruses that have similar surface characteristics notably a lipid bilayer envelope and similar spike proteins however chellam said that in the real world wastewater contains a whole slew of viruses unlike their experiments that included just a single strain of virus hence in their next set of experiments they plan to investigate if coagulation is still as effective at decontamination in these scenarios our work suggests that surface water treatment plants might be already well equipped to meet virus regulations for drinking water said chellam and coagulation is just the first step in the water purification pipeline this is very encouraging since additional purification steps will only attenuate enveloped viruses further alleviating associated health risks even more other texas a&m contributors to this research include doctoral student kyungho kim and dr anindito sen this research is funded by the national science foundation
the gram-negative bacteria helicobacter pylori (h pylori) colonize the stomachs of the majority of the worlds population although most people may never experience major complications due to the pathogen h pylori infections increase the risk of certain types of gastric cancer as well as other illnesses such as peptic ulcers and gastritis currently h pylori infections are treatable with a cocktail of antibiotics but the rapid emergence of antibiotic resistance in h pylori is a significant concern to counter these threats dr pushkar lele assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university investigated how h pylori locate their ideal environment within a hosts stomach motile bacteria such as h pylori swim by rotating string-like appendages called flagella they navigate by sensing chemical signals in their environment a process known as chemotaxis an intracellular signaling pathway – the chemotaxis network – aids navigation by controlling the direction of rotation of the flagella current understanding of how the chemotaxis network operates is based on studies of escherichia coli (e coli) which is a model system for bacterial chemotaxis and motility the chemotaxis network in e coli modulates the probability of clockwise rotation in otherwise counterclockwise-rotating flagella to help the cell migrate toward favorable chemical environments how the chemotaxis network modulates flagellar functions in h pylori is not known popular techniques that use probes to study chemotactic function in bacteria do not work well in h pylori this creates significant challenges in understanding flagellar functions in this species to overcome these challenges leles group pioneered a novel probe-free approach to study flagellar functions in h pylori their approach exploited the fact that cells swam around in clockwise circles near glass surfaces when their flagella rotated counterclockwise and counterclockwise circles when their flagella rotated clockwise in a paper published in elife lele and his research team used this approach to report the probability of the clockwise rotation in h pylori for the first time jyot antani a doctoral student in leles group performed the experiments that further showed that h pyloris chemotaxis network modulates flagellar functions similar to that in e coli lele said the similarity in the form of flagellar control in the two bacterial species is intriguing given that they differ in many key aspects whereas h coli prefer the stomach e coli are found in the lower gastrointestinal tract the physical characteristics of h pylori are such that they run forward and reverse unlike e coli which run forward and then tumble as a result the modulation of the probabilities of clockwise flagellar rotation which suits e coli very well is predicted to cause errors in chemotaxis in h pylori lele predicts that future work with their new approach will reveal how h pylori reach their targets despite the errors and how dietary interventions can be developed to inhibit chemotaxis this research was supported by a high impact high risk awards grant from the cancer prevention and research institute of texas
a new detonation research test facility (drtf) will be built and opened next year on the rellis campus adding to its array of capabilities for solving complex global problems dr elaine oran a world authority on the physics and chemistry of explosions will lead a team at the drtf examining how flammable gases and other materials interact and sometimes though not always detonate on a massive scale the discoveries could help prevent horrific mining industrial and home accidents predict the path of wildfires and make high-speed engines run more efficiently it even could improve the understanding of supernovas the texas a&m university system board of regents on thursday approved a plan to invest $5 million for construction of what is likely to be the largest university-based facility of its kind in the world the centerpiece is a 2-meter diameter 200-meter-long detonation tube that is made of steel walls at least 3/4-inch thick it will sit on concrete supports two feet above ground in a secure isolated and open area near the runways of the former air force base funding for the facility is split evenly between the governors university research initiative which gov greg abbott began in 2015 and the chancellors research initiative which chancellor john sharp began in 2013 this investment is bound to lead to remarkable breakthroughs sharp said well make texas oil gas and chemical industries and the entire world safer from accidental explosions the governors and chancellors research initiatives were designed to attract more top faculty to texas and they both played a role in the 2019 hiring of oran she is an aerospace engineering professor and the odonnell foundation chair vi in the texas a&m college of engineering she came from the university of maryland and previously served as the senior scientist for reactive flow physics at the us naval research laboratory there she led a research team that used a smaller-scale detonation facility in the mountains of eastern pennsylvania (now closed) to measure how gases liquids and solids interact and sometimes cause explosions researchers call these issues reactive flow problems oran pioneered computational technology to address reactive flow problems unifying concepts in chemistry physics engineering and computer science in a new methodology were looking at explosions: the physics that cause accidental explosions and how to stop them; or in the case of high-speed engines how to promote them quickly and control them oran said its all about safety control and advancing knowledge she said she was attracted to texas and texas a&m by the willingness to invest in a detonation facility that could get us to the next level of discovery and information it was just an amazing opportunity oran said its the kind of thing you really couldnt say no to the drtf will have a protective earth berm between the steel detonation tube and a control building for researchers at the opposite end a concrete wall and berms will surround a muffler pipe to keep the noise down the facility will be near two other testing ranges being assembled for the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) in partnership with army futures command to advance warfare-related technology one bcdc range is an enclosed highly instrumented tube for testing lasers and other materials traveling at hypersonic speed; the other is an outdoor range for experimenting with high-tech combat vehicles and their communication systems while the detonation facility is not part of the bcdc per se discoveries there could have applications for the department of defense detonation-related discoveries also could advance the work of the mary kay oconnor process safety center which is operated by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) to promote safety in chemical processes in the oil gas and pharmaceutical industries the safety center was established in memory of an employee killed in a 1989 explosion at the phillips petroleum complex in pasadena texas the initial blast registered 35 on the richter scale and an ensuing conflagration took 10 hours to control in all 23 employees died and 314 were injured the drtf will be operated by tees as well it will join a wide array of new cutting-edge facilities at the rellis campus on the western edge of bryan including the bcdc the center for infrastructure renewal the texas a&m transportation institute and the secureamerica institute
"harmony aeronautics a company started by members of the texas a&m university department of aerospace engineering has recently won a small business technology transfer (sttr) contract from the air forces agility prime program to further develop and commercialize their quiet rotor technology for vertical flight capable urban air mobility aircraft the contract is worth $150 000 and enables the company to seek up to $2-3 million in total funding over the next three years harmony aeronautics was co-founded by dr moble benedict and his graduate students david coleman farid saemi atanu halder hunter denton carl runco and bochan lee at the advanced vertical flight laboratory as well as two external collaborators benedict first started this team to compete in boeings gofly prize in spring 2018 this global design challenge sought to encourage development of a personal flying device that could quietly fly a single person for at least 30 minutes the aggie teams design was one of 10 winners in the contests design stage one of five winners in the contests build stage and the sole team to demonstrate quiet flight in the contests fly-off stage the air force kicked off its agility prime campaign to fund support and test novel electric vertical flight technologies soon after the team competed in the gofly contest the team successfully submitted an sttr proposal to agility prime with help from the office of commercialization and entrepreneurship at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the contract provides $150 000 and 6 months to further research the feasibility of the proposed idea next harmony aeronautics can apply for $750 000 and 15 months to demonstrate a prototype after this the startup can work with the air force and private partners to further field-test a product and develop a formal production line ""the tees commercialization & entrepreneurship team is fully committed to working with harmony aeronautics as it makes progress towards the next stages of commercialization "" said dr saurabh biswas tees executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship ""harmony is a tees commercialization & entrepreneurship portfolio company and its successful outcome in phase i provides a great foundation to build the next generation of products to serve both defense and civilian markets with their quiet rotor technology platform"""
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's office of commercialization and entrepreneurship aims to help inventors with planning effective patents copyright or trademark strategy invention disclosures and marketplace technology transfers the office connects industrial and private sector entities to a variety of technologies available for sponsored research licensing options and investment opportunities
the texas a&m university system board of regents on wednesday confirmed dr m katherine banks as the 26th president of texas a&m university banks who is currently vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories and dean of the texas a&m college of engineering assumes her duties june 1 banks also will carry the title vice chancellor of national laboratories and national security strategic initiatives because of her continued involvement with los alamos national laboratory and the george hw bush combat development complex at the rellis campus banks who has led texas a&m engineering for the past decade was selected after a national search led by board of regents chairman elaine mendoza vice chairman tim leach and a 15-member search committee after a robust national search which drew top-notch competitive candidates our board today unanimously confirmed dr katherine banks as the next president of texas a&m university mendoza said with her decade of accomplishments evident right here on campus dr banks will be ready and able to move forward from day one texas a&m is a great university and under her leadership we are expecting it to be even greater; we are excited to see this next chapter unfold we have all worked with dr banks for many years and we know what she has done to transform our engineering college to be among the biggest and best in the world said texas a&m system chancellor john sharp dr banks is going to do for the university what she has already done for engineering she is going to be a great president i am truly honored that the board of regents has selected me to be the next president of this great university said banks crucial listening sessions will begin soon with key stakeholders across campus and the state to gather perspectives concerning the issues challenges and opportunities that we face today i look forward to working together as we take texas a&m university to new levels of preeminence
on sultry summer afternoons heating ventilation and air conditioning (hvac) systems provide much-needed relief from the harsh heat and humidity outdoors these systems which often come with dehumidifiers are currently not energy efficient guzzling around 76% of the electricity in commercial and residential buildings in a new study texas a&m university researchers have described an organic material called polyimides that uses less energy to dry air furthermore the researchers said polyimide-based dehumidifiers can bring down the price of hvac systems which currently cost thousands of dollars in this study we took an existing and rather robust polymer and then improved its dehumidification efficiency said dr hae-kwon jeong mcferrin professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering these polymer-based membranes we think will help develop the next generation of hvac and dehumidifier technologies that are not just more efficient than current systems but also have a smaller carbon footprint the results of the study are described in the journal of membrane science as their name suggests dehumidifiers remove moisture from the air to a comfortable level of dryness thereby improving air quality and eliminating dust mites among other useful functions the most commonly available dehumidifiers use refrigerants these chemicals dehumidify by cooling the air thereby reducing its ability to carry water however despite their popularity refrigerants are a source of greenhouse gases a major culprit for global warming as an alternative material for dehumidification naturally occurring materials known as zeolites have been widely considered for their drying action unlike refrigerants zeolites are desiccants that can absorb moisture within their water-attractive or hydrophilic pores although these inorganic materials are green and have excellent dehumidification properties zeolite-based dehumidifiers pose challenges of their own scaling up is a big problem with zeolite membranes said jeong firstly zeolites are expensive to synthesize another issue comes from the mechanical properties of zeolites they are weak and need really good supporting structures which are quite expensive driving up the overall cost thus jeong and his team turned to a cost-effective organic material called polyimides that are well-known for their high rigidity as well as tolerance for heat and chemicals at the molecular level the basic unit of these high-performance polymers are repeating ring-shaped imide groups connected together in long chains jeong said the attractive forces between the imides gives the polymer its characteristic strength and thus an advantage over mechanically weak zeolites but the dehumidification properties of the polyimide material needed enhancement the researchers first created a film by carefully applying polyimide molecules on a few nanometers-wide alumina platforms next they put this film in a highly concentrated sodium hydroxide solution triggering a chemical process called hydrolysis the reaction caused the imide molecular groups to break and become hydrophilic when viewed under a high-powered microscope the researchers uncovered that the hydrolysis reactions lead to the formation of water-attractive percolation channels or highways within the polyimide material when jeongs team tested their enhanced material for dehumidification they found that their polyimide membrane was very permeable to water molecules in other words the membrane was capable of extracting excess moisture from the air by trapping them in the percolation channels the researchers noted that these membranes could be operated continuously without the need for regeneration since the trapped water molecules leave from the other side by a vacuum pump that is installed within a standard dehumidifier jeong said his team carefully designed their experiments to partial hydrolysis wherein a controlled number of imide groups become hydrophilic the strength of polyimides comes from their intermolecular forces between their chains said jeong if too many imides are hydrolyzed then we are left with weak material on the other hand if the hydrolysis is too low the material wont be effective at dehumidification although polyimide membranes have shown great promise in their potential use in dehumidification jeong said their performance still lags behind zeolite membranes this is a new approach to improve the property of a polymer for dehumidification and a lot more optimizations need to be done in order to further enhance the performance of this membrane said jeong but another key factor for engineering applications is it has to be cheap especially if you want the technology to be reasonably affordable for homeowners we are not there yet but are certainly taking strides in that direction this research is funded by the national science foundation and the qatar national research fund
dr vladislav yakovlev professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is part of a multiuniversity team researching how electrical and optical pulses can benefit cell absorption of materials including vaccines the team investigated the optical and electrical breakdown of materials those effects which describe material modification in the presence of extreme optical or electrical fields have been studied since the 1950s however the simultaneous application of optical and electrical fields especially to biologically relevant systems hasnt been explored before yakovlev said by investigating the synergistic action of electrical and optical pulses they were able to promote highly localized breakdown while reducing the threshold for such breakdown the newly discovered synergistic effect is particularly important if there is a need to selectively disrupt cellular membrane in a highly localized manner typically electroporation a technique that applies an electrical field to cells to increase the permeability of the cell membrane is used alternatively an optoporation which uses ultrashort laser pulses to form a small hole in the cell membrane can be employed a powerful combination of electroporation and optoporation can provide the benefits of both approaches leading to new ways drugs and vaccines can be delivered to cells and tissues one of the impacts of paramount significance of this effect which can be of great interest to a general audience is improved accuracy of vaccine delivery for covid-19 the team said in an impact statement the team recently published a paper in the journal photonics research where it was selected as editors' pick the research is funded by the air force office of scientific research with dr sofi bin-salamon serving as project manager salamon facilitated the collaboration between the three different research teams involved in this project while this technology would be a new addition to a laboratory the research team noted that creating the effect doesnt require sophisticated equipment allowing it to be used in a broad range of facilities we believe that a unique combination of a new fundamental science and a broad range of high-impact applications ranging from extreme light-matter interactions to nano- and biotechnology would be of great interest for a broad audience yakovlev said
five faculty members from the texas a&m university college of engineering were selected to receive a 2021 distinguished achievement award from texas a&m and the association of former students they were among 24 outstanding members of the universitys faculty and staff to be honored the college of engineering recipients recognized for their research were dr mahmoud el-halwagi professor and bryan research and engineering chair in chemical engineering artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and managing director of the gas and fuels research center; and dr svetlana sukhishvili professor department of materials science and engineering and director of the soft matter facility dr ibere alves professor of practice harold vance department of petroleum engineering and dr aakash tyagi professor of practice department of computer science and engineering were recognized for teaching; and dr gerard l coté texas a&m regents professor james j cain professor i in biomedical engineering and director of the center for remote health technologies and systems was recognized for graduate mentoring the university-level distinguished achievement awards were first presented in 1955 and have since been awarded to those who have exhibited the highest standards of excellence at texas a&m in recognition of their achievements each recipient receives a cash gift an engraved watch and a commemorative plaque see the complete list of honorees on texas a&m today
since the early industrial revolution in the mid-1700s fossil fuels have acquired an ever-growing footprint in energy production but the environmental concerns of fossil fuels use and their inevitable depletion have led to a global shift toward renewable energy sources these transitions however raise questions about the best choice of renewables and the impact of investing in these resources on consumer cost in a recent study published in the journal nature communications researchers at texas a&m university have devised a metric that reflects the average price of energy in the united states much like how the dow index indicates trends in stock market prices the researchers metric reflects the changes in energy prices resulting from the type of energy sources available and their supply chains energy is affected by all kinds of events including political developments technological breakthroughs and other happenings going on at a global scale said stefanos baratsas a graduate student in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m and the lead author on the study it's crucial to understand the price of energy across the energy landscape along with its supply and demand we came up with one number that reflects exactly that in other words our metric monitors the price of energy as a whole on a monthly basis today the energy industry is largely dominated by fossil fuels like coal natural gas and petroleum an increase in fossil fuel consumption particularly in the last few decades has raised increasing concerns about their environmental impact most notably the intergovernmental panel on climate change has reported an estimated increase at 02 degrees celsius per decade in global temperature which is directly linked to burning fossil fuels but only around an 11% share of the total energy landscape comes from renewable sources although many countries including the united states have committed to using more renewable energy sources there isnt a way to quantitatively and accurately measure the price of energy as a whole for example an establishment might use a combination of solar and fossil fuels for various purposes including heating power and transportation in this case it is unclear how the price would change if there is an increased tax on fossil fuels or subsidies in favor of renewables are introduced energy transition is a complex process and there is no magic button that one can press and suddenly transition from almost 80% carbon-based energy to 0% said dr stratos pistikopoulos director of the texas a&m energy institute and senior author on the study we need to navigate this energy landscape from where we are now toward the future in steps for that we need to know the consolidated price of energy of end users but we don't have an answer to this fundamental question
to address this research gap the researchers first identified different energy feedstocks such as crude oil wind solar and biomass and their energy products so for example crude oils energy products are petrol gasoline and diesel next they categorized the energy end users as either residential commercial industrial or transportation further they obtained information on which energy product and how much of it is consumed by each user from the united states energy information administration last they identified the supply chains that connected the energy products to consumers all this information was used to calculate the average price of energy called the energy price index for a given month and forecast energy prices and demands for future months as a potential real-world use of this metric the researchers explored two policy case studies in the first scenario they studied how the energy price index would change if a tax on crude oil was imposed one of their main findings upon tracking the energy price index was that around $148 billion could be generated in four years for every $5-per-barrel increase in crude oil tax also this tax would not significantly increase the monthly cost of energy for us households in the second case study that explored the effect of subsidies in the production of electricity from renewable energy sources they found that these policies can cause a dip in energy prices even with no tax credit baratsas said their approach offers a way to optimize policies at the state regional and national level for a smooth and efficient transition to clean energy further he noted that their metric could adapt or self-correct its forecasting of energy demands and prices in the event of sudden unforeseen situations like the covid-19 pandemic that may trigger a drastic decrease in the demand for energy products this metric can help guide lawmakers government or non-government organizations and policymakers on whether say a particular tax policy or the impact of a technological advance is good or bad and by how much said pistikopoulos we now have a quantitative and accurate predictive metric to navigate the evolving energy landscape and thats the real value of the index this research is funded by the texas a&m energy institute and mays business school
in 2020 the world watched as spacex launched a two-man crew in a commercially built and operated spacecraft to the international space station they then watched as they safely splashed down two months later long before the actual liftoff however researchers with nasa worked with staff from texas a&m university to ensure the crew would land safely under emergency conditions three years ago a team from nasa worked out the design of the life raft that would have protected the crew in the event of an emergency in the gulf of mexico the first water landing of nasa astronauts in 45 years at a texas a&m facility in college station cody kelly 10 an aerospace engineering graduate who currently serves as deputy for national affairs with the nasa search and rescue mission office worked closely with the offshore technology research center (otrc) staff to perform extensive and detailed testingnasa used this testing to make an initial down-selection for the life raft design that became the nasa baseline for all human-rated spacecraft across all existing human spaceflight programs kelly said the raft ops were the first look at rescue beacon integration into our spacesuits early in the design cycle located in texas a&ms research park the otrc is a graduated national science foundation (nsf) engineering research center supporting the offshore oil and gas industry that conducts basic engineering research and develops systems for the economic and reliable recovery of hydrocarbons at ocean depths of 3 000 feet or more it is jointly operated by texas a&m the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the university of texas at austins cockrell school of engineering additionally we were able to test rescue beacon designs prior to manufacturing kelly said early testing provided the opportunity for efficient data sharing between the orion program and our commercial crew counterparts dr richard mercier professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m has been director of the otrc since 2001 and manages all wave basin projects and the research program
otrc has conducted numerous projects for nasa and associated contractors (boeing united space alliance jacobs engineering) since the facility opened in 1991 he said codys project was the fourth in a series that was executed between 2004 and 2017 having to do with testing of life preserver units life rafts and miscellaneous vehicle egress equipment the otrc wave basin is capable of large-scale simulations of the effects of wind waves and currents on fixed floating and moored floating structures the wave basin is 150 feet long and 100 feet wide with a depth of 19 feet the pit located in the center of the basin has a depth of 55 feet with 48 individually controlled paddles the wavemaker can generate various wave conditions including unidirectional and multidirectional regular and irregular (random) waves sixteen dynamically controlled fans can generate prescribed gusty wind conditions from any direction a modular current generation system consisting of banks of submerged jets can generate sheared current profiles nasa provided all equipment and test protocols for these projects but the facility offered capabilities of producing wind and waves for prescribed sea states and also safety divers to assist nasa personnel in the water our staff and student workers are always eager to support and participate in these projects mercier said nasa shared videos photos and facility test data with their partners at spacex and boeing to help engineers certify and fly the design following testing at otrc astronauts robert behnken and douglas hurley were on the spacex crew dragon spacecraft that took off into orbit from the kennedy space center in florida with their landing fully protected by the life raft design that was decided upon in 2017 at the otrc
the offshore technology research center provides technology expertise and services needed for the development of drilling production and transportation systems that enable the safe and economically viable exploitation of hydrocarbon resources in deep and ultra-deep water it has a deepwater model basin the only one of its kind in the us
erica schabert a private school teacher is committed to helping her middle school students gain a deeper understanding of math and science however like many educators and campuses around the country the pennsylvania teacher has limited financial resources to spend on professional development due to the economic downturn caused by the covid-19 pandemic fortunately the hope lutheran christian school teacher learned about the stem 4 innovation conference hosted by texas a&m universitys college of engineering thanks to a generous contribution from chevron this event which was held virtually jan 11-12 was free for all participants and will continue to be available through july 13 to any pk-12 teacher on-demand a total of 576 teachers registered for the conference which is a 218% increase from the 2020 face-to-face event held in college station by offering this conference virtually the college of engineering was able to reach 416 first-time attendees including educators from 44 us states and 13 countries schabert who was one of those first-time attendees came away impressed it was the best professional development ive seen in a long time she said everybody was willing to share and the conference had such an open and warm environment the stem 4 innovation conference has a long and rich history that goes back to 2008 previously offered as a face-to-face conference in college station the event brings teachers together to learn about innovative stem (science technology engineering and math) strategies and tools that they can immediately utilize in the classroom in addition conference coordinators take advantage of texas a&ms designation as a tier-one research institution to create a unique attendee experience that includes interactions with world-class researchers the emergence of covid-19 forced conference coordinators to rethink the event leading to the decision to go virtual still the interactive conference continued to offer expert presentations resources chat rooms and exhibits the virtual experience was great said christina campos a first-time attendee who teaches at west oso junior high in corpus christi it felt like we were in person except without any walking the 2021 conference continued to tap expertise from across texas a&ms campus workshops presentations and exhibits were offered by faculty from the college of engineering the college of science college of education and human development college of geosciences college of agriculture and life sciences college of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences texas a&m forest services and texas a&m university at galveston four interactive workshops were designed to give teachers a better understanding of the engineering process for example one session taught by experts from the college of agriculture and life sciences asked participants to brainstorm a new food product pitch it to consumers and investigate bringing the product to market another session organized by the college of education and human development encouraged teams of teachers to design a functional and aesthetically pleasing office that was economical while also meeting social distancing requirements breakout sessions also were offered these sessions which addressed a variety of topics that focused on either elementary or middle/high school level needs included jobs of the future: exploring stem careers in natural resources with project learning trees green jobs guide bringing the great outdoors indoors through virtual field trips stem challenges using sphero robotics and critical precollege stem knowledge the virtual conference created an environment where teachers who feel especially isolated and stressed during the pandemic could connect to each other and find help this conference has opened my eyes beyond anything i can even imagine said campos i am the stem coordinator and i was struggling to get resources but this conference enabled me to sit in the comfort of my home and meet some amazing people conference coordinators believe that 2021s virtual experience offers lessons that will be incorporated into future stem 4 innovation conferences this has helped people realize that you can have some authentic learning experiences virtually said john peterson conference coordinator and associate director of the college of engineerings spark! pk-12 engineering education outreach many people still prefer face-to-face but maybe we can plan some hybrid version of the conference for the people from california pennsylvania or australia who cant travel to texas a&m for two days participants left the conference feeling very motivated to bring what they learned into the classroom and to continue their relationship with texas a&m i fell in love with everything i saw: wonderful research possibilities great projects equipment friendly staff and outreach programs said georgina grillo a secondary teacher at golden valley school in heredia costa rica who already plans to attend the 2022 conference the conference made me wish that i could go back to college at texas a&m's college of engineering
researchers from the texas a&m university department of materials science and engineering and los alamos national laboratory (lanl) materials science at radiation and dynamics group are improving the metals used to construct nuclear technology this collaboration is made possible by the texas a&m university system national laboratories office and lanl dr michael demkowicz and dr kelvin xie from texas a&m and dr yongqiang wang from lanl are investigating hydrogen retention in metals that are exposed to nuclear processes with the intent of improving how these materials perform over time hydrogen retention in metals is a serious concern in nuclear technology nuclear reactions and transmutations by reactor neutrons cause changes to chemical elements and isotopes thus introducing additional hydrogen into materials often hydrogen accumulates to levels that exceed the solubility limit a material can absorb the excess of hydrogen in the material causes brittleness and weakness limiting its functionality over time another issue with excess hydrogen is that it accumulates at trapping sites such as in spaces in the material and at grain boundaries most metal alloys are actually made up of lots of microscopic crystals packed closely together these little crystals are called grains and the planes where adjacent grains are fused together are called grain boundaries in the reactor environment the defects created by the irradiation process such as vacancies and dislocations also become new traps for hydrogen when many hydrogen atoms are trapped together they form gas bubbles in the metal similar to carbon dioxide bubbles in soda these bubbles can facilitate the formation of large voids that can cause severe damage to the material one way to manage the hydrogen accumulation and subsequent damage is to remove as much of it as possible from the material unfortunately most materials do not contain a good pathway for hydrogen to travel through in this project the researchers will create composites where pathways for hydrogen motion are built into the structure of the material the novel materials to be developed and tested as part of this project are expected to exhibit ‘self-healing behavior whereby damage would be removed from the material even as it is created demkowicz said this would be an outcome of their unique internal microstructures in order to test the materials for hydrogen retention diffusion and outgassing the researchers will use the unique collection of ion implantation and ion beam analysis tools available at lanls ion beam materials laboratory these tools will allow the researchers to introduce and track the amount of hydrogen in the material with designer microstructures thus providing data for the amount of hydrogen that is outgassed the ideal outcome for this project would be to identify composite materials that allow enough hydrogen outgassing to keep the retained hydrogen levels at or below their threshold such materials would be able to withstand nuclear reactions better than materials currently in use in addition to advancing basic science this project will explore technical issues that are crucial to the development of future fusion reactors demkowicz said this article originally appeared on the texas a&m university system national laboratories office website
the texas a&m university system national laboratories office (nlo) was formed by the chancellor to be a conduit for expanding engagement with the national laboratories for faculty staff and students of the a&m system this office engages with all department of energy and national nuclear security agency laboratories and sites the nlo has developed a multi-element program to help texas a&m system researchers develop collaborative ties with researchers at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) execute the texas a&m system and lanl collaborative research projects and formalize long-term relationships where appropriate such as through joint appointments
the engineering genesis award for multidisciplinary research was presented to 26 texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers and their teams during a virtual award ceremony on dec 15 the award which is presented to tees researchers who have secured significant research grants of $1 million or more were given to the following: pi: roozbeh jafari biomedical engineering $123 million grant from the department of defense-defense threat reduction agency for covid-19: rate-covid: rapid analysis of threat exposure operationalization pi: ranjana mehta industrial and systems engineering co-pi: saurabh biswas biomedical engineering $5 million grant from the national science foundation for b2: learning environments with augmentation and robotics for next-gen emergency responders pi: ankit srivastava materials science and engineering co-pis: patrick shamberger ibrahim karaman svetlana sukhishvili raymundo arroyave and yu xie materials science and engineering; alaa mohamed elwany industrial and systems engineering; mohammad naraghi aerospace engineering $47 million grant from the department of defense-army research laboratory for materials and manufacturing processes for the army of the future pi: le xie electrical and computer engineering co-pis: prasad enjeti and pr kumar electrical and computer engineering $4 million grant from the department of energy for secure monitoring and control of solar power distribution system through dynamic watermarking pi: pavel tsvetkov nuclear engineering co-pis: sean mcdeavitt and mark kimber nuclear engineering $36 million grant from the natura resources llc for research and development support for molten salt research reactor licensure pi: roozbeh jafari biomedical engineering co-pis: jack mortazavi computer science and engineering; melissa grunlan biomedical engineering; thomas ferris industrial and systems engineering $35 million grant from the national institutes of health for an unobtrusive continuous cuff-less blood pressure monitor for nocturnal hypertension pi: zachary grasley civil and environmental engineering co-pi: jeffrey bullard dallas little junuthula reddy thomas lacy civil and environmental engineering; arthur schwab soil and crop sciences $28 million grant from the department of defense for concrete and composites experiments and modeling for army applications pi: zheng oneill mechanical engineering $27 million grant from the department of defense-washington for securing grid-interactive efficient buildings through cyber defense and resilient system pi: swaminathan gopalswamy mechanical engineering co-pis: swaroop darbha and sivakumar rathinam mechanical engineering; dylan shell and zhangyang wang computer science and engineering; john valasek aerospace engineering; gholamreza langari george hw bush combat development complex $25 million grant from the department of defense-research laboratory for arl: air ground coordination pi: james wall texas a&m center for applied technology (tcat) co-pis: keith biggers tcat; john walewski civil and environmental engineering $17 million grant from the department of energy for facility data and technology integration pi: patrick shamberger materials science and engineering co-pi: emily pentzer and svetlana sukhishvili materials science and engineering; choongho yu and jonathan felts mechanical engineering; charles culp college of architecture $15 million grant from the department of energy-washington for salt hydrate eutectic thermal energy pi: mustafa akbulut chemical engineering co-pi: joseph kwon chemical engineering $15 million grant from the department of energy-office of fossil energy for dynamic binary complexes as super-adjustable viscosity modifiers for hydraulic fracturing fluids pi: samuel noynaert petroleum engineering co-pi: fred dupriest petroleum engineering $15 million grant from the department of energy for changing the way geothermal wells are drilled: physics-based drilling parameter selection workflow implementation and training in order to reduce non-productive time and increase rop pi: stephen cambone cro co-pis: jeyavijayan rajendran electrical and computer engineering; rainer fink ana goulart byul hur and wei zhan engineering technology and industrial distribution; gholamreza langari cybr $15 million grant from the department of defense-air force-research laboratory for hardware integrity verification utilizing scanning electron microscopy pi: arum han electrical and computer engineering $14 million grant from the national institutes of health for developing extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics against pre-term birth through the use of maternal-fetal interface on a chip pi: jim morel nuclear engineering co-pi: raymundo arroyave materials science and engineering; amine benzerga aerospace engineering; jean-luc guermond and bojan popov mathematics $14 million grant from department of energy-national nuclear security administration for collaborative research and development supporting llnl missions pi: jim morel nuclear engineering co-pis: marvin adams jean ragusa and mauricio tano retamales nuclear engineering; jean-luc guermond mathematics $14 million grant from the department of energy-national nuclear security administration for collaborative research and development supporting stockpile stewardship pi: mary mcdougall biomedical engineering co-pis: jim ji qemg; steven wright electrical and computer engineering; peter nghiem veterinary integrative biosciences $13 million grant from the national institutes of health for multi-coil multi-nuclear add-on system for clinical field strength nmr-based biomarker detection for duchenne muscular dystrophy pi: christopher limbach aerospace engineering co-pis: rodney bowersox and richard miles aerospace engineering $12 million grant from the department of defense-air force-office of scientific research for canonical validation experiments for hypersonic aerodynamics pi: yu ding industrial and systems engineering co-pis: jiang hu and pr kumar electrical and computer engineering; sarbajit banerjee chemical engineering $12 million grant from the national science foundation for cps: medium: real-time learning and control of stochastic nanostructure growth process through in situ dynamic imaging pi: mahmoud el-halwagi chemical engineering co-pis: joseph kwon chemical engineering; lucy mar camacho chico environmental engineering $12 million grant from the department of energy for deploying intensified automated mobile operable and novel designs diamond for treating shale gas wastewater (108) pi: amy martin civil and environmental engineering $11 million grant from the texas department of transportation for balanced mix design system for superpave hot-mix asphalt mixtures with rap pi: jack mortazavi computer science and engineering; co-pi: ricardo gutierrez-osuna computer science and engineering $11 million grant from the national science foundation for sch: int: personalized models of nutrition intake from continuous glucose monitors pi: danny davis public service and administration; co-pis: stephen cambone cro; william norris international affairs $11 million grant from the department of defense-office of net assessment for assessing warfare in the digital age pi: mladen kezunovic electrical and computer engineering $1 million grant from the department of energy-washington for big data synchrophasor monitoring and analytics for resiliency tracking
the process of fabricating materials is complicated time-consuming and costly too much of one material or too little can create problems with the product forcing the design process to begin again advancements in the design process are needed to reduce the cost and time it takes to produce materials with targeted properties funded by the national science foundation (nsf) researchers at texas a&m university are using advanced computational and machine-learning techniques to create a framework capable of optimizing the process of developing materials cutting time and costs our general focus is working on materials design by considering process-structure-property relationships to produce materials with targeted properties said dr douglas allaire associate professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering in our work we demonstrate a microstructure sensitive design of alloys with a bayesian optimization framework capable of exploiting multiple information sources bayesian optimization-based frameworks use prior knowledge as models to predict outcomes in the past researchers have used this framework in correlation with a single information source (simulation or experiment) if that method failed the process starts again with the hopes of making the right adjustments based on this model the researchers have rejected this notion and instead believe that many information sources can be pulled using a bayesian framework to develop a more complete picture of underlying processes they have combined multiple information sources to create materials with targeted properties more efficiently by looking at data in its entirety rather than its parts what we think that is very different is that you can have many different potential models or information sources said dr raymundo arróyave a professor in the department of materials science and engineering there are many ways to understand/model the behavior of materials either through experiments or simulations our idea is to combine all of these different models into a single ‘fused model that combines the strengths of all the other models while reducing their individual weaknesses their research titled efficiently exploiting process-structure-property relationships in material design by multi-information source fusion was recently published in vol 26 of the acta materialia journal these model chains have historically not considered the breadth of available information sources said allaire they consider single models along the chain from process through structure to property as a result they are not as efficient or accurate as they could be the researchers are currently testing this framework by developing dual-phase steels typically used on automobile frames dual-phase steels are made out of two phases with very different and complementary properties there are two phases; the martensite phase makes this particular steel very strong said arróyave the ferritic phase is softer and makes the steel more compliant and amenable to deformation with only martensitic microstructures these materials are strong but they break easily however if you combine the strength of martensite with the ductility of ferrite you can make steels that are very strong can absorb energy during impact and that can be fabricated into complex shapes such as car frames using the method developed in this work the goal is to develop a framework that more precisely and effectively predicts the needed composition and processing (recipe) for a specific design in turn this decreases the number of simulations and experiments required drastically reducing costs the knowledge that we gain about the material design process as a whole using our framework is much greater than the sum of all information extracted from individual models or experimental techniques said dr ankit srivastava assistant professor for the materials science and engineering department the framework allows researchers to efficiently learn as they go as it not only collects and fuses information from multiple models/experiments but it also tells them which information source ie a particular model or experiment provides them the best value for their money or time which really enhances the decision-making process in the future they hope their framework is widely used when attempting tasks that involve integrated computational materials design our hope is that by presenting these model fusion-based bayesian optimization capabilities we will make the search process for new materials more efficient and accurate said allaire we want any researcher to use the models that they have available to them without worrying as much about how to integrate the models into their own modeling chain because our bayesian optimization framework handles that integration for them
sickle cell disease (scd) is the most prevalent inherited blood disorder in the world that affects between 70 000 to 100 000 americans however it is considered an orphan disease meaning it impacts less than 200 000 people nationally and is therefore underrepresented in therapeutic research a team led by dr abhishek jain from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is working to address this disease im trying to create these new types of disease models that can impact health care with the long-term goal of emphasizing on applying these tools and technologies to lower health care costs said jain assistant professor we strategically wanted to pick up those disease systems which fall under the radar in orphan disease category jains research is in organ-on-a-chip where cells from humans can be grown on usb-sized devices to mimic the way the organ would work inside the body this sort of system is ideal for testing new drug treatments as drugs cannot be tested on humans and animal models have not shown to be a good representation of how a patient and disease would interact with a treatment for scd patients the organ-on-a-chip would also be beneficial because patients can present with mild to severe cases jain works with tanmay mathur a fourth-year doctoral student who trained as a chemical engineer in his undergraduate years his research focused on microfabrication techniques and simulationsskills he said merge well into the organ-on-a-chip research he now performs in jains lab the team collaborates closely with the texas medical center in houston
their work recently published in bioengineering & translational medicine builds off a 2019 publication in the journal lab on chip where the team demonstrated that endothelial cells (cells that line the blood vessels) could be used to model the disease physiology of a patient without having to stimulate the model to perform differently than a healthy vessel traditionally these cells were not used for disease modeling so in that way our approach is very novel mathur said we are one of first to harness these cells and employ them in disease modeling research mathur and jain demonstrate that these models can be used to differentiate between patients the first step: build a blood vessel that mimics a patients vessel for that the team would need two components patient blood and endothelial cells collecting the blood involved a simple blood draw they faced a challenge with the endothelial cells however they would need to take a biopsy of the cells or use stem cells to grow their own neither of which was ideal then they found the answer was in the blood what we learned is within blood samples are some endothelial cells also circulating jain said we call them blood outgrowth endothelial cells that we can harness very easily thats what is new about this work you can get those cells grow them so thats theres enough in number and then you can make blood vessels now that they could build the vessels the next step was to see if these models would show how the disease has various biological impacts in different patients again the goal was to be able to test treatments on these models so the closer they mimiced their human patient the better
were able to differentiate a very severe sickle cell patient in terms of their phenotype from very mild patients mathur said moving forward we can take a larger population of any sickle cell disease patients and assess them using our organ-chip technology and then categorize them into different groups based on symptoms their findings indicate that these organs-on-a-chip could lead to patient-centric personalized treatment improving how clinicians approach this and other cardiovascular diseases when you take it to the field now it can become a predictive device jain said now you do not have to know whether the patient is mild or severe you can test for that you can predict if patient is serious and can dictate their therapeutic needs the next step is to continue to expand the patient cohort to collect more results a long-term goal would be to use the patient information collected to develop a database to better predict disease progression you take a history of a lot of these patients and their cardiovascular health with this device and you can predict which patient might have better chance of having a stroke and you start treating them early on jain said mathur said even with future challenges he looks forward to continuing their research i think even though it may take 10 15 years we will at least push forward some of the research that were doing and get it out in the clinical field he said we are one of the only groups in the world that have started this field of personalized treatment i feel that our impact is pretty high and im sure we will be able to expand the same treatment to other cardiovascular diseases and attract more attention and deeper insights into the biology that we are looking at this work is funded by a trailblazer award jain received from the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering
during the start and onrush of the covid-19 pandemic all hospitals in the state of texas restricted visitation for intensive care unit (icu) patients and their families because of the infectious nature of the virus family members were unable to visit or even communicate with their loved ones leaving many individuals with feelings of anxiety confusion and fear of the unknown a group of doctors from houston methodist and researchers from texas a&m university identified a novel approach of adapting a virtual icu or vicu to make family visitations possible the vicu involves physiological sensors that are monitored 24/7 in the operations center of the hospital the system also includes two-way audio/video communication technology in the past this technology has been reserved for virtual visits by doctors and consultants but it was instrumental in connecting icu patients with their family members especially when dealing with the highly infectious coronavirus a new process was designed and rapidly implemented to allow family members to book a visit with their loved ones virtually after speaking to a virtual registered nurse (vrn) family members receive a link in a text which would connect them to the audio/video equipment installed in the patients room this improvised solution was important since bringing in outside technology such as phones or tablets into the icu was no longer possible because it posed sanitation threats and subjected medical staff to much higher risks of infection often patients werent able to use everyday technology themselves due to sedation and intubation restrictions and would require assistance from medical staff to use the equipment
using vicu technology not only provided more accessible technology for the patient but also posed less of a risk of infection for health care workers even though some patient assistance could be needed depending on the severity of the patients condition we needed to think outside the box and use something that wasnt intended for this purpose at all said dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m this is an example of effective improvisation and adaptation which are key characteristics of resilient health systems we know from the literature that family engagement is extremely important it has positive impacts on patient outcomes to evaluate this improvised solution the research team interviewed 230 family members after using this technology to communicate with their loved ones and overall the responses were very positive albeit emotional a majority of users reported feelings of joy and relief being able to see their family members still there were reports of sadness with family members seeing their loved one in a difficult situation particularly when the patient was intubated or unable to speak there were also some responses recorded from family members who lost their loved ones while in icu and reported that they were grateful to have had this option to see them and get closure some users reported potentially making this available on-demand to enable initiating calls on their own the adoption of a vicu for family visitation shows promise during an unusual and trying time for many however several areas identified for modification and improvement need to be addressed i believe our family-centered approach provides an opportunity to take us closer to a real open-icu concept in which family members are engaged more efficiently and effectively sasangohar said this will have a significant positive impact on patient outcomes
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
dr matthew yarnold assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university has been chosen to deliver the 2021 robert j dexter memorial award lecture the award was given by the steel bridge task force oversight council of the american iron and steel institute the national steel bridge alliance and the american association of state and highway transportation officials t-14 technical committee for structural steel design yarnold will present a lecture on his past and current research findings at the next meeting of the steel bridge task force on aug 12 2021 in philadelphia pennsylvania the robert j dexter memorial award lecture program provides an opportunity for individuals early in their careers in structural engineering to present a lecture on their steel bridge research activities to the steel bridge task force and participate in its semiannual three-day meeting recipients become invited guests of the steel bridge task force comprised of leading steel bridge experts the program was instituted in 2005 in memory of robert j dexter an associate professor of civil engineering at the university of minnesota who was an internationally recognized expert on steel fracture and fatigue problems in bridges yarnolds research includes structural steel behavior bridge engineering the experimental assessment of structural systems novel techniques for structural health monitoring and engineering education he has extensive experience with the experimental testing of structural systems and has led research projects for the national science foundation state departments of transportation and private engineering firms he is an active member of several national committees through the american society of civil engineers and the transportation research board yarnold has more than 17 years of structural engineering research and design experience he began his career at lehigh university where he received his bachelors and masters degrees following graduation he accepted a position with the engineering firm ammann & whitney where he contributed to more than 15 bridge design and rehabilitation projects while also obtaining his professional engineering license after a successful career as a consultant he returned to academia and completed his doctoral degree at drexel university he joined the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m in 2017 yarnold is also an affiliated faculty member and researcher at the structural and materials testing lab at the center for infrastructure renewal
the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) a joint center between the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the texas a&m transportation institute is a leading global source for the development of transformative infrastructure solutions through cross-industry and government agency collaboration the cir facilitates the creation of state-of-the-art methods technologies and solutions that society needs for infrastructure renewal the cir houses researchers who are developing advanced and sustainable materials and structural systems that will reduce cost and extend infrastructure life safety resiliency and durability
a new texas a&m university-developed technique that allows for the creation of building materials using local soils could prove key not only to the success of future space missions to the moon and mars but also to establishing a solid and safe foothold on both a futuristic concept that came one step closer to reality with last weeks successful landing of nasas perseverance rover on the surface of mars thanks to a 2021 nasa innovative advanced concepts (niac) program grant awarded to a team led by texas a&m researcher and nasa niac fellow dr sarbajit banerjee an innovation that began with boggy water-logged soils from canada to texas may soon be applied to the rocky razor-sharp regolith that dominates the lunar and martian landscapes in order to help solve a three-part problem banerjee says has plagued the space agency since the apollo missions: excessive dust unnecessary damage and untold danger five of the six apollo landings had issues with dust blocking the astronauts view of the surface forcing them to guess at the final landing location and sometimes landing on slopes dangerously close to the maximum tolerance one time precariously close to a major crater said banerjee a professor in the department of chemistry with an affiliated appointment in the department of materials science and engineering if nasa and its commercial partners are to mount a sustained presence on the moon and mars and land on outer solar system bodies we need to find a way to tame surface materials for landing and mobility banerjee in collaboration with colleagues in the texas a&m college of engineering and college of architecture proposes to do just that in his teams niac effort regolith adaptive modification system (rams) to support early extraterrestrial planetary landings and operations their publication is one of 16 selected by nasa for phase i awards out of nearly 300 proposals submitted for consideration each award provides nine months of seed funding that allows researchers to further develop their ideas in order to compete for up to $500 000 more in phase ii funding that will help them further advance and refine their technology over the course of two additional years for more than two decades the niac program has nurtured visionary ideas capable of transforming future nasa missions with the creation of breakthroughs radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts while engaging americas innovators and entrepreneurs as partners in the journey the program seeks innovations from diverse and non-traditional sources selecting projects that study innovative technically credible advanced concepts that could one day change the possible in aerospace in much the same way they previously created an economical environmentally friendly alternative to concrete using clay-based soil from a backyard in texas or a geopolymerized wood fiber prototype suitable for all weather-roads using mucky canadian muskeg soil banerjee and his team are confident their niac team can create landing pads and other prepared surfaces on mars out of regolith to address what he sees as one of the most critical surface-related developments since the apollo program the texas a&m teams proposed rams approach relies on sequentially delivered microcapsules chemically tuned to react with the components of regolith through a series of exothermic reactions to create geopolymerized subsurface slabs by employing a similar process that helped them perfect the development of sustainable building materials which quickly gain strength after being 3d printed the team will use a sequence of chemical reactions to coat all surfaces and make high-strength vanadium steel skins and anchors using a de facto nano steel mill powered by locally harvested minerals and highly exothermic reactions as an added bonus banerjee notes the nanothermite and encapsulating systems necessary to run it are both lightweight and safe to fly the team is a subset of the texas a&m lunar surface experiments program comprised of both faculty and student researchers whose purpose is to design and build fundamental science experiments and technology demonstrations to be delivered to the lunar surface as payloads aboard commercial lunar landers thereby making the moon a new laboratory for texas a&m view a complete list of niac awards for 2021 and previous years this article originally appeared on the texas a&m college of science website
a texas a&m university researchers collaborative study titled an integrated approach for managing microgrids with uncertain renewable sources demand response and energy markets has been chosen for a 2020-21 los alamos national laboratory (lanl) collaborative program award in the category of research projects dr natarajan gautam professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering has partnered with lanl staff scientist dr harsha nagarajan for a four-year research project focusing on energy needs demand and future power supply for small communities and microgrids using solar and wind power this four-year research project is a part of a collaboration between the texas a&m university system and lanl it is designed for a&m system researchers to collaborate with lanl researchers on an identified topic suitable for joint-effort funding from national laboratories office and lanl one of the main goals of this program is to increase the depth and number of research collaborations between the two institutions and the individuals involved while figuring out an efficient way to bring renewable power to a small community population a question that needs to be answered is whether that power gets stored in individual batteries for future household use or if it gets sold back into the grid to be used by individuals in real time all while keeping the power available and at affordable rates we are trying to see what challenges we may face so that while we develop this kind of distributed technology we will have it in place so that everything runs smoothly gautam said you want to have quality service you never want the lights to be off but you also want to reduce the cost as much as possible and have as little inconvenience as possible having highly distributed energy means that people will create energy locally as an alternative to large-scale power grids thereby using renewable energy efficiently gautam says the research will help mitigate spiking and plummeting currents and ultimately make electricity cheaper for consumers when they are only tapping into the grid when power is needed gautam and nagarajan are going to be evaluating two possibilities for homes to manage power supply-demand imbalance: each residence having its own battery for power storage that may include a device resembling teslas powerwall or residences having one main line connected to the grid large-scale power operations have the ability to diversify their portfolio when needed it is more difficult to supply power to a community of people because of the size of a microgrid on the other hand if large-scale grids experience an interruption there are many people who are affected in addition weather poses its own set of uncertainties particularly with renewable energy which can be exacerbated when working on a community level fossil fuels provide more leeway in deciding how much power is needed on the grid at any given time and production can be cut or increased from there based on demand when working with renewables the weather on any given day is the gatekeeper for how much power if any can be produced if its a bright sunny day and there is a considerable amount of solar power being produced the next question is what to do with all of that extra power however on a cloudy day there will not be much production gautam says that with the number of statistical methods included in this research there may be a way to automatically predict this in advance ultimately leading to a more efficient grid system you dont want each individual to have to make this decision every day we want to have something in a software system that will do what is best for users gautam said this is very data driven and we have a lot of historical data we can pull from you want to make an informed decision right now but also have a good idea of how the future is going to pan out this research includes a lot of optimization modeling and uncertainty in the system especially when you talk about wind and solar it is very difficult to predict tomorrow or the day after let alone several months down the road gautam said that is part of the reason as to why we havent gone ahead with much of these renewable energy efforts is because of the amount of uncertainty thats there the foundation for this research leans heavily into the operations research and systems engineering areas of industrial and systems engineering because of the number of analytical methods needed for forecasting and creating an integrated system that can handle the fluctuation of providing renewable power to small communities of people is the ultimate goal
using machine learning researchers at texas a&m university have developed an algorithm that automates the process of determining key features of earths subterranean environment including bountiful reservoirs of groundwater oil and natural gas specifically the researchers algorithm is designed on the principle of reinforcement or reward learning here the computer algorithm converges on the correct description of the underground environment based on rewards it accrues for making correct predictions of the pressure and flow expected from boreholes subsurface systems that are typically a mile below our feet are completely opaque at that depth we cannot see anything and have to use instruments to measure quantities like pressure and rates of flow said dr siddharth misra associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and the department of geology and geophysics although my current study is a first step my goal is to have a completely automated way of using that information to accurately characterize the properties of the subsurface the algorithm is described in the december issue of the journal applied energy simulating the geology of the underground environment can greatly facilitate forecasting of oil and gas reserves predicting groundwater systems and anticipating seismic hazards depending on the intended application boreholes serve as exit sites for oil gas and water or entry sites for excess atmospheric carbon dioxide that need to be trapped underground along the length of the boreholes drilling operators can ascertain the pressures and flow rates of liquids or gas by placing sensors conventionally these sensor measurements are plugged into elaborate mathematical formulations or reservoir models that predict the properties of the subsurface such as the porosity and permeability of rocks for their study misra and his team chose a type of machine-learning algorithm based on the concept of reinforcement learning simply put the software learns to make a series of decisions based on feedback from its computational environment imagine a bird in a cage the bird will interact with the boundaries of the cage where it can sit or swing or where there is food and water it keeps getting feedback from its environment which helps it decide which places in the cage it would rather be at a given time said misra algorithms based on reinforcement learning are based on a similar idea they too interact with an environment but it's a computational environment to reach a decision or a solution to a given problem so these algorithms are rewarded for favorable predictions and are penalized for unfavorable ones over time reinforcement-based algorithms arrive at the correct solution by maximizing their accrued reward another technical advantage of reinforcement-based algorithms is that they do not make any presuppositions about the pattern of data for example misra's algorithm does not assume that the pressure measured at a certain time and a certain depth is related to what the pressure was at the same depth in the past this property makes his algorithm less biased thereby reducing the chances of error at predicting the subterranean environment when initiated misra's algorithm begins by randomly guessing a value for porosity and permeability of the rocks constituting the subsurface based on these values the algorithm calculates a flow rate and pressure that it expects from a borehole if these values do not match the actual values obtained from field measurements also known as historical data the algorithm gets penalized consequently it is forced to correct its next guess for the porosity and permeability however if its guesses were somewhat correct the algorithm is rewarded and makes further guesses along that direction the researchers found that within 10 iterations of reinforcement learning the algorithm was able to correctly and very quickly predict the properties of simple subsurface scenarios misra noted that although the subsurface simulated in their study was simplistic their work is still a proof of concept that reinforcement algorithms can be used successfully in automated reservoir-property predictions also referred as automated history matching a subsurface system can have 10 or 20 boreholes spread over a 2-5-mile radius if we understand the subsurface clearly we can plan and predict a lot of things in advance; for example we would be able to anticipate subsurface environments if we go a bit deeper or the flow rate of gas at that depth said misra in this study we have turned history matching into a sequential decision-making problem which has the potential to reduce engineers efforts mitigate human bias and remove the need of large sets of labeled training data he said future work will focus on simulating more complex reservoirs and improving the computational efficiency of the algorithm this research is funded by the united states department of energy
the texas a&m university system board of regents today named dr m katherine banks as the sole finalist for the position of president of texas a&m university this is a tremendous honor banks said the core values of texas a&m its rich traditions unique culture and commitment to the greater good is the very foundation of this great university and resonates deeply with me i hope to build upon that framework in our pursuit of preeminence without losing what makes texas a&m so special texas a&m is one of a kind and theres nowhere else id rather be banks is currently director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station dean of the texas a&m college of engineering and vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the a&m system in those roles she spurred unprecedented growth in the college of engineering while also being a pivotal leader in some of the a&m systems greater accomplishments including recruiting the army futures command to the rellis campus and winning a federal contract to help manage los alamos national laboratory on wednesday chancellor john sharp recommended banks as sole finalist and the board approved under state law regents name a finalist for at least 21 days before making the appointment at a subsequent meeting the board was excited to know the search yielded tremendous interest and many qualified candidates said elaine mendoza chairman of the board of regents this speaks to the stellar reputation credibility and positive momentum of texas a&m university the board is confident that dr banks will lead the university to even greater heights while celebrating the traditions and spirit that make texas a&m unique for more information see the full press release about banks being named sole finalist
texas a&m university researchers have recently shown superior performance of a new oxide dispersion strengthened (ods) alloy they developed for use in both fission and fusion reactors dr lin shao professor in the department of nuclear engineering worked alongside research scientists at the los alamos national laboratory and hokkaido university to create the next generation of high-performance ods alloys and so far they are some of the strongest and best-developed metals in the field ods alloys consist of a combination of metals interspersed with small nanometer-sized oxide particles and are known for their high creep resistance this means that as temperatures rise the materials keep their shape instead of deforming many ods alloys can withstand temperatures up to 1 000 c and are typically used in power generation and engines within aerospace engineering as well as cutlery the nuclear community has a high need for reliable and durable materials to make up the core components of nuclear reactors the material must be high strength radiation tolerant and resistant to void swelling (materials develop cavities when subjected to neutron radiation leading to mechanical failures) nuclear researchers like shao are consistently seeking to identify quality creep-resistant and swelling-resistant materials for their use in high-temperature reactors in general ods alloys should be resistant to swelling when exposed to extreme neutron irradiation said shao however the majority of commercial ods alloys are problematic from the beginning this is because almost all commercial ods alloys are based on the ferritic phase ferritic alloys classified by their crystalline structure and metallurgical behavior have good ductility and reasonable high-temperature strength however the ferritic phase is the weakest phase when judged by its swelling resistance therefore making the majority of commercial ods alloys fail in the first line of defense shao known internationally for his pioneering work in radiation materials science directs the accelerator laboratory for testing alloys under extreme irradiation conditions shao and his research team collaborated with the japanese research group at hokkaido university led by dr shigeharu ukai to develop various new ods alloys we decided to explore a new design principle in which oxide particles are embedded in the martensitic phase which is best to reduce void swelling rather than the ferritic phase said shao the resulting ods alloys are able to survive up to 400 displacements per atom and are some of the most successful alloys developed in the field both in terms of high-temperature strength and superior-swelling resistance details of the complete project were published in the journal of nuclear materials along with the most recent study the team has since conducted multiple studies and attracted the attention from the us department of energy and nuclear industry the project resulted in a total of 18 journal papers and two doctoral degree dissertations
dr paul gratz and dr jiang hu in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university are utilizing machine-learning models to detect performance bugs within processors and create a more efficient method to combat this real-world problem as consumers we upgrade to a new phone gaming system or smart device for the home because the newer model offers better battery life graphics performance and overall capabilities when these bugs go undetected and are released into ‘the wild in our homes and into our everyday lives – the performance we lose out on as a result can have a greater long-term effect than we might realize when it comes to computer bugs there are two main types: functional and performance a functional bug means an error within a processor creates a computing result that is simply wrong for example if a processor is asked to solve three plus two and its result is seven there is clearly an issue with that result a performance bug is not as simple to detect suppose you want to drive from college station to houston said hu professor in the department at one point you somehow make a mistake and drive toward dallas thats a big mistake and its pretty easy to tell but there are different paths to houston some are shorter some are longer – that difference is hard to tell because you still arrived at your desired destination performance bugs can fly under the radar and remain unnoticed forever – ultimately diminishing the progress to be made in all facets of modern technology fortunately gratz and hu are working with collaborators at intel corporation on a promising answer
by utilizing machine-learning models and automating the process gratz and hu are hopeful that the effort currently spent on performance validation can be drastically reduced ultimately leading to technologies that reach their full potential more efficiently and effectively this is the first application of machine learning to this kind of problem said gratz associate professor its the first work we have really found that actually tries to tackle this problem at all gratz and hu explained that their procedure allows them to do in a day with one person what currently takes a team of several engineers months to accomplish the first hurdle in detecting these bugs is defining what they might look like the computing industry faces this challenge during initial performance analyses when a new technology shows a performance somewhat better than the previous generation it is hard to determine if that processor is running at its full potential or if a bug is reducing the outcomes and they should expect better results if you have a 20% gain between one generation to the next how do you know that the 20% gain couldnt have been 25% or 30% gratz said this is where the teams machine-learning models come into play the models are able to guess what the performance of the new machine will be based on these relationships so that the team can see if there is a divergence because chips are more compact and complex than ever before there is a higher chance for such bugs to appear as the complexity of chip design grows the conventional method to detect and eliminate bugs manual processor design validation is increasingly difficult to maintain thus a need for an automated solution became apparent intel contacted hu in june 2019 with hopes of collaboration to solve this critical issue this work has been supported by a grant from the semiconductor research corporation the researchers published their current findings in a paper that was accepted into the 27th institute of electrical and electronics engineers international symposium on high-performance computer architecture a top tier conference in computer architecture
as humankind steps into new frontiers in space exploration satellites and space vehicles will need to pack more cargo for the long haul however certain items like dish antennas used for wireless communication pose a challenge since they cannot be very densely packed for flight because of their signature bowl shape now researchers at texas a&m university have used the principles of origami the ancient japanese art of paper folding to create a parabolic structure from a flat surface using a shape-memory polymer when heated the researchers showed that the shape-memory polymer changes its shape in a systematic way that mimics folds this reshaping lifts the material into the shape of a dish further they also showed that their origami-engineered dish antennas performed as efficiently as conventional smooth dish antennas initially we were largely focused on self-folding origami structures: how would you make them how would you design them into different shapes what material would you use said dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering having answered some of these questions we turned to some real-world applications of origami engineering like adaptive antennas for which there has been very little work done in this study we combine folding behavior and antenna performance and address that gap the researchers have described their antenna design in the journal smart materials and structures antennas come in various designs and their major function is to transmit or receive information in the form of electromagnetic waves some antennas like the ones for communicating between a television and a space-bound satellite are curved in the shape of a parabola this ensures that the electromagnetic waves hitting the bowl-shaped antenna are reflected and converge to a small point of focus by extension when these antennas transmit electromagnetic waves they do so in a narrow direction a feature known as directionality
thus parabolic reflectors are a natural choice for space applications since they either pick up or send information in a specific direction however their shape makes them inconvenient to store in space vehicles where there is limited room this problem is exacerbated when many antennas need to be stored onboard one way to address this hurdle is origami engineering using this technique flat 2d structures can be folded into elaborate 3d shapes if parabolic antennas can be made flat using origami they can be stacked or rolled up inside of a rocket and when ready for deployment be unrolled and folded into a parabolic shape however hartl explained that folding a piece of flat material into a smooth bowl is difficult and nonintuitive conventional origami design entails folding thin sheets of material at sharp creases engineering structures on the other hand have a thickness and the choice of material can make it hard to get these sharp creases he said consequently we need to create folds that exhibit smooth bending to facilitate paper-like folding at the creases the researchers turned to shape-memory composites that change their shape when heated in addition these materials are inexpensive lightweight flexible and capable of being stretched multiple times without being damaged first they built a flat 2d surface using strips of shape-memory composites and cardstock simply put pieces of stiff cardstock which formed flat facets were held together by the shape-memory composites similar to how the ribs of an umbrella hold the fabric in place further at the vertices where the composites meet they cut out tiny holes to serve as corner creases when the assembly folds into a 3d parabola the researchers showed that the composites changed their shape by bending systematically when heated eventually lifting the cardstock pieces into a parabolic bowl-like shape they also tested if their multifaceted parabolic reflector worked as efficiently as a smooth parabolic antenna and found that the two antennas performed comparably hartl said this research is an important step toward using the principles of origami to make highly functional engineering structures that can be stowed compactly and easily deployed when needed in addition to other applications future advances based on this research will likely result in morphing reflector antennas for military and space telecommunication applications he said this research is funded by the national science foundation and the air force office of scientific research
dr nick duffield the royce e wisenbaker professor i in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named a 2020 fellow by the association for computing machinery (acm) for his contributions to network measurement and analysis acm is the world's largest and most prestigious society of computing professionals the acm fellows program recognizes the top 1% of acm members for their outstanding accomplishments in computing and information technology and/or outstanding service to acm and the larger computing community fellows are nominated by their peers with nominations reviewed by a distinguished selection committee duffield is director of the texas a&m institute of data science (tamids) at which he and his collaborators pursue new approaches to data science research education operations and partnership the work conducted within tamids spans multiple disciplines and connects researchers from across texas a&m to bring together elements of data science from engineering technology science and the humanities and inform wider social challenges duffield also holds a courtesy appointment in the department of computer science and engineering duffields research focuses on data science and computer networking with current projects concerning algorithms for data streaming and machine learning computer network measurement and resilience and applications of data science to urban science transportation agriculture and hydrology
the texas a&m institute of data science (tamids) serves and fosters collaborations across the university and its affiliated agencies it is a joint undertaking of texas a&m university with the texas a&m engineering experiment station and texas a&m agrilife research tamids is an inclusive umbrella organization for data science and facilitates interactions between researchers in diverse application areas and those with expertise in core methodologies promotes education in data science across the university and pursues outreach to commercial and governmental organizations in the wider data science ecosystem
the national academy of inventors (nai) has named two engineering faculty members from texas a&m university to its 2021 class of nai senior members the two new senior members are from the college of engineering: dr saurabh biswas associate professor of practice department of biomedical engineering and executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship texas a&m engineering experiment station dr roozbeh jafari tim and amy leach professor department of biomedical engineering department of computer science and engineering and the department of electrical and computer engineering nai senior members are active faculty scientists and administrators from nai member institutions with success in patents licensing and commercialization they have produced technologies that have brought or aspire to bring real impact on the welfare of society the 2021 class includes 63 accomplished academic inventors who are named on 625 issued us patents and who represent 37 nai member institutions research universities governmental entities and nonprofit institutes worldwide the title of nai senior member was established in 2019 the selection of biswas and jafari brings the number of current texas a&m faculty members who are nai senior members to 11 in addition 13 current texas a&m faculty members are nai fellows congratulations to dr biswas and dr jafari for earning this distinction said vice president for research dr mark a barteau an nai fellow also thank you to the nai for recognizing the innovations of our outstanding a&m faculty members in the ongoing quest for solutions that better the human condition and address our worlds most challenging problems nai is a member organization comprising of us and international universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes with more than 4 000 individual inventor members and fellows spanning more than 250 institutions worldwide
"machine learning is widely used in various applications such as image recognition autonomous vehicles and email filtering despite its success concerns about the integrity and security of a models predictions and accuracy are on the rise to address these issues dr yupeng zhang professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and his team applied cryptographic algorithms called zero-knowledge proof protocols to the domain of machine learning ""these protocols will allow the owner of a machine-learning model to prove to others that the model can achieve a high accuracy on public datasets without leaking any information about the machine-learning model itself "" said zhang the researchers' findings were published in the proceedings from the association for computing machinery's 2020 conference on computer and communications security machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence that focuses on algorithms that give a computer system the ability to learn from data and improve its accuracy over time these algorithms build models to find patterns within large amounts of data to make decisions and predictions without being programmed over the years machine-learning models have undergone a great deal of development which has led to significant progress in several research areas such as data mining and natural language processing several companies and research groups claim to have developed machine-learning models that can achieve very high accuracy on public testing samples of data still reproducing the results to verify those claims remains a challenge for researchers it is unknown if they can achieve that accuracy or not and it isn't easy to justify the theoretical foundation of cybersecurity and cryptography is the science of protecting information and communications through a series of codes so that only the sender and the intended recipient have the ability to view and understand it its most commonly used to develop tools such as encryptions cybertext digital signatures and hash functions there are approaches outside of cryptography that could be used one of which involves releasing the model to the public however as machine-learning models have become critical intellectual property for many companies they can't be released because they contain sensitive information essential to the business ""this approach is also problematic because once the model is out there there is a software tool online anyone could use to verify "" said zhang ""recent research also shows that the model's information could be used to reconstruct it and used for whatever they desire"" as an application of cryptography zero-knowledge proof protocols are a mathematical method that allows the owner of a machine-learning model to produce a succinct proof of it to prove with overwhelming probability that something is true without sharing any extra information about it while there has been a significant improvement in the use of general-purpose zero-knowledge proof schemes in the last decade constructing efficient machine-learning prediction and accuracy tests remains a challenge because of the time it takes to generate a proof ""when we applied these generic techniques to common machine-learning models we found that it would take several days or months for a company to generate a proof to prove to the public that their model can achieve what they claim "" said zhang for a more efficient approach zhang and his team designed several new zero-knowledge proof techniques and optimizations specifically tailored to turn the computations of a decision tree model which is one of the most commonly used machine-learning algorithms into zero-knowledge proof statements using their approach on the computations of a decision tree they found that it would take less than 300 seconds to generate a proof that would prove the model can achieve high accuracy on a dataset as their newly developed approach only addresses generating proof for decision tree models the researchers want to expand their approach to efficiently support different types of machine-learning models contributors to this project include zhiyong fang doctoral student in the computer science and engineering department; and doctoral student jiaheng zhang and dr dawn song from the university of california berkeley this work is supported by the national science foundation defense advanced research projects agency and the center for long-term cybersecurity"
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and lockheed martin corporation signed a master research agreement (mra) on april 29 to further cement their longstanding research collaboration bridget lauderdale vice president and general manager of the f-35 lightning ii program at lockheed martin and dr m katherine banks vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories for the texas a&m university system and director of tees signed the agreement during a ceremony in the zachry engineering education complex the two research powerhouses have developed a robust working relationship over the years collaborating on many cutting-edge research projects the master research agreement will facilitate collaborations across disciplines including hypersonics advanced networks autonomy and cyber and directed energy lockheed martin is excited to support and partner with texas a&m to solve complex problems that impact the national security of the united states and our allies the research and development we will accomplish with the master research agreement and our ongoing partnership with the university consortium for applied hypersonics will ensure our nation is prepared for the unpredictable world we live in today and far into the future said lauderdale from hypersonics to directed energy autonomous vehicles to advanced networks this partnership will elevate texas a&ms $200 million investment into the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) and its mission to support leading edge national security research and technology development banks said we have developed a true national security innovation ecosystem and this expanded partnership with lockheed martin will provide tremendous opportunities for our faculty researchers and students this close partnership helps facilitate the adoption of these advances while supporting the next generation of hypersonic researchers said dr rodney bowersox associate dean for research at tees and ford i professor of aerospace engineering last year tees was selected by the us department of defense joint hypersonics transition office (jhto) which is led by dr gillian bussey to lead the national university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) bowersox who is the tees executive director for ucah commented this mra is perfectly aligned with the jhto vision of an inclusive ecosystem of university industry and laboratory partnerships to provide innovative solutions to applied hypersonics problems while educating the national workforce the bcdc located on the rellis campus in bryan texas will soon be the site of many kinds of research testing including the innovation proving ground (ipg) a challenging outdoor test site for autonomous aerial ground and subterranean vehicles additional state-of-the-art testing facilities are coming online soon including a one-of-a-kind ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range for directed energy and hypersonics research the bcdc complex is located on 2 000 acres and includes a full complement of facilities equipment and instrumentation including the research integration center (ric) with laboratories accelerator space and offices for the army futures command and other texas a&m system collaborators construction is currently underway on the bam test range as well as the ipg which is an outdoor testing area for designing analyzing and validating new technologies in challenging environments
finding effective covid-19 vaccine formulas alone is not enough to put the global pandemic behind us thats why the texas a&m university system is collaborating with fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies texas to train the workforce that is mass producing two covid-19 vaccine candidates for the federal government for the past nine months a dedicated team of texas a&m university scientists at the national center for therapeutics manufacturing (nctm) has been training workers on the biomanufacturing basics needed to produce the covid-19 vaccine candidates the nctm is a joint research center of the texas a&m engineering experiment station and texas a&m with just four instructors and a handful of support staff the team has trained more than 200 new employees of fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies texas the company is the texas a&m systems biomanufacturing subcontracting partner in the national emergency manufacturing program texas a&m is doing a great public service said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system by collaborating with fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies texas to increase the vaccine supply our team is helping save a bunch of lives chancellor sharp recently visited the nctm to learn more about its success the nctm employee training is arranged through the center for innovation and advanced development and manufacturing (ciadm) in college station a texas a&m system program established in 2012 by the federal government for just this kind of national emergency
to meet fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies texas aggressive hiring pace in recent months our team has delivered nearly nonstop training said dr zivko nikolov director of nctm and a professor of bioprocess engineering at texas a&m im so honored to lead such a dedicated team the training is a customized intensive seven-day hands-on curricula of various aspects of cell culture and basic molecular biology aseptic processes and microbiology and upstream and downstream processing of biological materials the team worked quickly to build the program within weeks of the federal request last july the training began almost immediately and has continued ever since the ability to respond rapidly to an emergency is the main original goal of the ciadm program said dr william jay treat director of ciadm and chief manufacturing officer for the texas a&m health science center since its creation nctm has been critical to developing training programs to meet the manpower required for an emergency such as this pandemic the nctm has more than 25 000 square feet of dedicated instructional space with several million dollars worth of traditional stainless and single-use systems for upstream and downstream bioprocessing it has contracted with more than 80 subject-matter experts to build a catalog of training programs that serve industry government and academia in the past eight years nctm has trained nearly 1 600 students including new hires and employed professionals undergraduate/graduate students military veterans and others transitioning careers and even high school students interested in stem careers we have never been more proud of our work than in the past nine months said jenny ligon nctm assistant director for workforce development who has been with nctm since its creation in 2012 im so proud of our small but mighty team we are happy to do our part in getting everyone vaccinated as a center of excellence for science manufacturing and engineering we are pleased to closely collaborate with texas a&m to train new hires to support the manufacture of life-impacting medicines and vaccines at our college station facility said dr gerry farrell chief operating officer of fujifilm diosynth biotechnologies texas it is critical that we continue to train local talent to feed this growing and vibrant texas biotech community
the national center for therapeutics manufacturing is a first-of-its-kind multi-disciplinary workforce education institution and biopharmaceutical manufacturing center located at texas a&m university in college station texas the nctms workforce development mission is to provide education training and outreach programs to produce a highly skilled workforce for the vital us and global pharmaceutical industry
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dr valerie g segovia has been named associate director of outreach and education for the texas a&m engineering experiment stations nuclear engineering and science center (nesc) and associate director of the nuclear power institute (npi) in her new role segovia will work with the nesc director and staff to manage expand and direct all nesc outreach and education programs as npi associate director she will manage expand and direct the statewide workforce development mission and supervise all npi staff i have such great feelings of satisfaction gratitude and appreciation segovia said in regards to her new roles at nesc and npi every day is challenging inspiring and intellectually stimulating in working with our students educators and partners while meeting our missions segovia began her career with npi over a decade ago and has created novel programs that have been implemented across the state of texas including the npi flagship program the workforce industry training program traditionally only 15%-17% of us high school graduates pursue a stem (science technology engineering and mathematics) college degree however through segovias leadership an average of 75%-80% of graduating high school students who participated in npi programs have pursued a stem degree over the past decade segovia is a gulf coast workforce board member and has worked in the public school system as an elementary teacher high school counselor high school assistant principal and high school principal she was recognized as a texas association of secondary school principals (tassp) region iii principal of the year and tassp texas principal of the year finalist and she also won the joseph b whitehead educator of distinction award for exemplary dedication to the field of education additionally she was named a kavu channel 25 hometown hero under her leadership and management palacios high school was named a top performing school by us news & world report segovia holds a bachelors degree in interdisciplinary studies and masters degrees in counseling and administration and supervision and a doctorate in educational leadership this article originally posted by the nuclear power institute (npi)
dr chanan singh and doctoral student arun karngala from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university are working to develop a reliability framework for the distribution system so that utility companies can be better prepared for uncertainties that may arise singh is a regents professor the irma runyon chair professor and university distinguished professor by developing these models and methods to perform the analysis of the distribution level of the power grid adverse effects of localized weather events or equipment failure can potentially be prevented the researchers framework can be used to test the systemwide impact of installing rooftop solar and energy storage by the customers in the distribution system we found that with 40% of customers installing solar capacity that amounts to 15 times the peak demand of the respective households karngala explained with sufficient energy storage systems the reliability indices measured significant improvements for example the system average interruption frequency index was improved by 50% the system average interruption duration index was improved by 70% and the customer average interruption duration index was improved by 45% karngala said that this framework can also be used to decide the capacity of solar rooftop installation if the installed solar capacity is increased from one time the peak demand to two times the peak demand the reliability indices show steady improvement the improvement in indices tapers off after the installed solar capacity is increased more than 25 times the peak demand performing reliability studies can help create business cases for purchasing such storage and ongoing research on storage technologies is helping to provide more affordable and reliable alternatives the research team is focused on the analysis and reliability at the distribution level as it is the most vulnerable of all stages of power allocation and therefore can cause the most trouble for customers further unlike high-level sectors of the power grid – such as power generation and transmission – that have existing methods of analysis and procedures to ensure that the reliability will be maintained in the presence of uncertainties at specified levels the distribution level generally does not have such standards most independent system operators (isos) ensure they have enough power generation reserve so that if an unexpected issue arises (eg transmission line failure generator failure the load being higher than forecasted etc) resulting in the total load not being supplied the load can be adjusted so that it is not lost completely for all customers many isos use criteria that ensure that on average this load curtailment would not occur more than one day in 10 years such standards are not typically used at the distribution level this work was published in ieee transactions on sustainable energy in january the winter storm event that happened recently in texas was of a different nature that spanned the entire state singh said but extreme weather can be in a variety of forms for example you can have tornadoes or hurricanes where the effect is not statewide but instead more limited areas are affected we believe that in those situations these models and the tools that they will provide to us to manage the system will enhance the reliability of the distribution system because you dont have to rely only on the power that is coming from the grid but also from other local sources such as solar and perhaps wind one challenge that the team is facing is that there are many different kinds of generating systems being integrated into distribution systems that must be accounted for in this framework analysis as karngala explained distribution systems previously were considered the only consumers of energy but today there are newer technologies and many more distributed energy resources coming into the distribution system such as solar panels wind generation and storage the exciting part about working on distribution systems is that these are in a phase of change now karngala said these are changing from traditional systems to much more advanced systems and we are in that transition phase where we need to develop models and methodologies ultimately the team is looking to build a comprehensive framework of reliability analysis where approaches such as demand response price strategies and operational strategies can be included and be expanded upon as the power grid evolves there is no shortage of projects that can be developed around this framework as many models methods and operational strategies can be included in the reliability evaluation karngala said this work is funded by the department of energy as part of the us-india collaborative for smart distribution system with storage project
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's energy market segment features innovative solutions to obstacles in energy production processing and consumption our strengths include natural gas fossil and non-fossil-based technologies energy economics and multi-scale energy systems engineering; upstream petroleum engineering technology through industry partnerships; energy consumption optimization in commercial and industrial building operations; power system infrastructure integration with transportation to create energy ecosystems; and turbomachinery performance and reliability in rotor dynamics acoustics seals tribology couplings computational and experimental fluid dynamics heat transfer torsional vibrations materials and finite element analysis
before your phone can be a source of endless tiktok videos you must first acquire it through a global supply chain but when these supply chains are disrupted whether due to a global pandemic unexpected winter storms or a massive cargo ship blocking a busy trade canal it can affect everything from the food you eat to the toilet paper on the shelves of local grocery stores dr eleftherios lefteris iakovou the harvey hubbell professor of industrial distribution at texas a&m university and director of manufacturing and logistics innovation initiatives for the texas a&m engineering experiment station is utilizing his years of expertise in supply chain research to bolster current supply chains and develop new resilient supply chain systems he recently published an extensive look into supply chains and how to build a more resilient system in the united states so what exactly is a supply chain at its core it is the network or process involved in the creation and sale of a product to consumers and industrial customers iakovou also the co-director of the global value chains program at the bush school and director of supply chain management for the secureamerica institute of the texas a&m university system explained that it is far more intricate than just that however a supply chain is an extended enterprise over which we do five things: we plan we buy we make we move we sell he said over this extended enterprise we manage four flows we manage flows of products flows of processes flows of information and financial flows and unless we do this synergistically we cannot add value to the supply chain itself defining disruptions when one part of this delicately balanced network fails and disrupts the process the rest of the supply chain consumers companies and the nation included are directly affected this can be a disruption in supply or production such as when a manufacturing plant in japan is out of commission due to a tsunami; a disruption in demand and supply as seen with the increased need and lower supply of power during the winter storm in texas; or a disruption in transportation due to the suez canal being blocked by one of the largest container ships in the world the ever given vessel he explained that these global supply chains are very brittle and highly susceptible to disruptions particularly surrounding uncertain or unplanned events for example the covid-19 pandemic demonstrated a lack of preparedness by nations and companies alike for black swan (low probability-high impact) events it's one thing to prepare an organization based on chronically occurring disruptions and it's another thing to think ‘how can i create a supply chain that is flexible enough agile enough so when something really bad happens it has the posture to bounce back as quickly as possible iakovou said the future of resilience developing a resilient supply chain starts with understanding that one size does not fit all each has its own set of complications and strengths in the modern global economy cost reduction has almost become synonymous with outsourcing and offshoring the manufacturing of components for products however it is important for companies to still have home-based manufacturing plants that operate even at a lower production rate in case there is an issue with the offshored supply iakovou said covid-19 demonstrated the sole supplier model is out of business companies are pushing for low cost low cost itself is not sustainable he said the federal government on the other side needs resilience and security for supply chains critical to the nation (eg pharmaceuticals semiconductor chips large capacity batteries rare earth minerals) but resilience costs money as its based on redundancies (diversified sourcing additional inventories) iakovou suggests the government has a key role to play by transitioning companies away from a shareholder model and into a stakeholder model as suggested in 2019 by the business roundtable private and government sectors would have to collaborate and consider not only shareholder value but also workers and associated partners society national competitiveness and security and the environment that's a monumental shift that if it happens correctly would allow for new optimal trade-offs between cost efficiencies resilience and sustainability he said iakovou pointed out that in the past governmental agencies were critical in de-risking innovations related to the internet touch screens and vaccines he believes the government should work with the movers and shakers in society and the private sector to continue to advance similar innovations in supply chains critical to the nation and to further support the nations well-being competitiveness security and global leadership there is a talk in my humble opinion deservedly so about the elevated role of the government as a further catalytic entity to spur more innovation in the way we design these global supply chains so that they display cost-competitive resilience in order to address the new realities he said and that's where the stakeholder model would be very handy so i absolutely believe that this is the way to move forward
the texas a&m engineering experiment station and texas a&m university have a demonstrated history of strong leadership and excellence in fields that affect everyday life like supply chain management the thomas and joan read center for distribution research and education applies both advanced research skills and a thorough understanding of distribution to every project their experts who merge long-standing industry experience with the latest developments in academia conduct both primary and secondary research for manufacturers distributors professional associations and publications texas a&ms global supply chain laboratory teaches students the importance of a dynamic end-to-end supply chain vision as well as cutting-edge solutions for wholesale and industrial distribution channels
researchers at texas a&m university are developing novel tests to diagnose preeclampsia earlier in a pregnancy even before symptoms occur allowing hospitals to better treat pregnant patients preeclampsia a pregnancy complication that can lead to organ damage especially in the liver and kidneys is one of the leading causes of maternal and baby deaths during pregnancy current diagnosis typically occurs very late in the pregnancy (around the 20th week) by documenting common symptoms such as high blood pressure protein in the urine and swelling in the legs however an added complication is that these symptoms resemble many common side effects associated with a healthy pregnancy and sometimes there may also be no symptoms even if preeclampsia exists what were looking for is more specific biomarkers that could be monitored and addressed said dr samuel mabbott assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering the research is being developed in collaboration with dr gerard coté professor in the department of biomedical engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station center for remote health technologies and systems and dr mahua choudhury associate professor in the texas a&m college of pharmacy to better diagnose the condition we are developing an assay on paper that using a drop of blood and a small hand-held meter can measure a biomarker in the blood much earlier in the pregnancy further by using paper-based systems the technology is better suited for low resource settings where preeclampsia is even more prevalent coté said coté and mabbott have a keen interest in developing diagnostic tests that can be utilized in underserved under-resourced and often remote environments both are also developing cardiac and diabetes diagnostic and monitoring tests for these populations as part of an engineering research center funded by the national science foundation called precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations the current testing relies on microrna noncoding rna sequences in the body that are involved in protein creation mabbott said compared to antibody-based testing microrna may help clinicians detect diseases earlier antibodies or antigen-based diagnostics are understandably well utilized their levels can be used to quantify disease states mabbott said the problem is it takes a long time for those biomolecules to achieve detectable levels levels of disease-related microrna levels are perturbed much earlier in the disease cycle along with microrna the team also aims to find histones a specific family of proteins changes in expression of both of these biomarkers can be monitored and measured to better detect patients who are more susceptible to preeclampsia one challenge mabbott said is identifying emerging disease biomarkers and most significantly clinically validating them by combining the detection of micrornas and histones in one multiplexed paper fluidic device it is hoped that the robustness and accessibility of the test will increase the long-term goal is to have a test that can be easily administered to pregnant patients in any circumstance and provide test results within 30 minutes since the test itself is novel and the targeted biomarkers are revolutionary it is incredibly exciting to be working on the project mabbott said were trying to think ahead by using both emerging biomarkers and accessible test formats
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
"dr tim davis and dr roozbeh jafari were recently named recipients of the texas a&m engineering experiment station's research impact award the award recognizes research that has had an impact broadly defined as leading to outcomes that extend beyond conventional boundaries including opening new lines of research solving a long existing problem or producing tools or products that have become widely adopted in practice by industry and/or government davis received the award for developing novel methods for solving graph problems using linear algebra and creating widely used algorithms and software for sparse matrix computations jafari was recognized for pioneering context-aware physiological monitoring devices based on wearable computers davis is a professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university his research is focused on two main areas: sparse linear algebra on graphics processing units (gpus) and methods for solving graph algorithms in the language of sparse linear algebra over semirings gpus provide the promise of high performance and lower energy use but they work best on very regular problems the challenge is to map the irregular nature of sparse matrix algorithms to perform well on gpu architectures davis many honors include receiving the 2018 walston chubb award for innovation and a dean of engineering excellence award from the college of engineering he was elected as a fellow of the society for industrial and applied mathematics for ""contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software including the university of florida sparse matrix collection"" he also is a fellow of the association for computing machinery and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers dr davis work on sparse matrices and graphblas is extremely impactful and found in a variety of products and tools said dr scott schaefer department head and holder of the lynn ‘84 and bill crane ‘83 department head chair in computer science and engineering the interest from industry in his recent work has been extraordinary jafari is a professor with joint appointments in the department of biomedical engineering the department of computer science and engineering and the department of electrical and computer engineering he is also the director of the embedded signal processing lab his research focuses on wearable computer design and signal processing with applications in health care wellness and enhancing productivity and safety of the users he has received numerous honors and awards including several best paper awards and is a presidential impact fellow at texas a&m a recipient of the national science foundation career award and a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering the potential for dr jafaris work on wearable computers to monitor health status and predict infections or other negative events is tremendous said dr mike mcshane department head and holder of the james cain professorship ii in biomedical engineering of course the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has heightened interest in developing such advanced tools for the welfare of all"
"dr satish bukkapatnam director of the institute for manufacturing systems has been awarded the george l smith international award for excellence in the promotion of industrial engineering this award given by the institute of industrial and systems engineers (iise) is presented to an individual who has made significant contributions to the discipline and exemplifies being a goodwill ambassador for the profession bukkapatnam has traveled to various educational institutions and developed many programs and formal partnerships particularly in france and india after assuming the role of the director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations (tees) institute for manufacturing systems in 2014 he also worked with contacts from the technocentre henri-fabre on the am2 transatlantic partnership led by texas a&m university and tees and the arts et métiers institute of technology to develop a vigorous research portfolio in smart manufacturing with the main focus on smart manufacturing and artificial intelligence for the fourth industrial revolution or industry 40 it is an honor to be chosen for this award i see this as a recognition of the bonds of friendship and partnership our colleagues from france and india had forged with us bukkapatnam said in particular i wish to thank arts et metiers and professor el mansori for the untiring efforts to build the am2 partnership i also wish to thank professors tiwari ramesh babu and satyanarayana for enabling vigorous interactions with our colleagues from indias premier institutions especially the indian institutes of technology and national institute of industrial engineering over the span of 14 years bukkapatnam offered internships to 14 undergraduate students hosted two bose scholars recruited five graduate students (one of whom is a current faculty member at arizona state university mentored both students and early-career faculty and co-organized three major workshops to promote emerging topics in smart manufacturing ""dr bukkapatnam is the most deserving of this recognition by the iise it is a testimony to his great efforts in promoting research and education in smart manufacturing globally said dr eyad masad executive director of global initiatives for tees his impact encompasses the full spectrum: joint research programs exchange of students workforce development and development of unique infrastructure for manufacturing in collaboration with other institutions"""
the institute for manufacturing systems (ims) serves as the focus of manufacturing research outreach and education for the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) the ims embodies texas a&m universitys land-grant mission by providing direct access to the manufacturing and technology expertise of the texas a&m university system by texas industry and the texas engineering community
artificial intelligence (ai) continues to be a growing part of our everyday lives as we become more accustomed to seeing autonomy replacing even the most mundane tasks the military is no exception as they continue to prioritize the safety of soldiers in combat dr thomas ferris associate professor in the wm michael barnes department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university is working with the crew optimization and augmentation technologies (coat) program a project under the us army futures command (afc) to support human crew members in future ground vehicle systems in addition to developing and testing advanced driver displays and interfaces coat research seeks to integrate automation with ai properties into the vehicle cockpit in order to help reduce the size of manned crews this means fewer soldiers put in harms way but brings unique challenges to balancing workload across system elements and maintaining necessary performance levels this project looks at sharing jobs between humans and autonomy this requires knowing which jobs are best suited for humans and which for the ai agents and how to ensure mission effectiveness of the human-vehicle system as responsibilities and roles change ferris said if there is a just a driver and that is his only job thats easier to understand and study now we need to think about what else does the driver do when hes not driving because the ai agent can take over at times and when and how does the human know to regain responsibility of the driving
the afc focuses on the modernization of the us army and longer-term future technologies and systems one aspect of this project focuses on providing sensor data so onboard soldiers can maintain awareness of their surroundings or situation awareness but in a way that minimizes safety risks in the past soldiers would typically pop their head out of the top of the vehicle to visually survey their surroundings in real time which exposes the soldiers to enemy fire going forward and with the help of this research soldiers will have the ability to see all external activity from inside the vehicle and be protected by its armor thus making their missions substantially safer some technologies being investigated include video cameras that capture surroundings in real time and feed that data back to the soldiers inside the vehicle soldiers inside the vehicle cockpit could be using these feeds to drive the vehicle they are currently passengers in or drive a completely separate remote-controlled vehicle ultimately the soldiers task responsibilities need to be flexible in order to support flexible management of the vehicle and thus safer and more effective mission performance
in a recent evaluation experiment test subjects drove military vehicles through eight different courses at camp grayling a military base in central michigan with each course requiring a different driving function to determine how the subjects perform using display configurations that included helmet-mounted and vehicle-mounted visual displays
the next steps in the research include incorporating more automation into the task flow for soldiers operating the vehicle in order to allow them to focus their efforts on other tasks and ultimately optimize the safety and performance of the system then the question becomes for the human crewmembers how can we optimize performance on the tasks that theyre responsible for ferris said can we bring in artificial intelligence and can we bring in automation to make some tasks easier without sacrificing overall mission objectives so that the humans can essentially handle the responsibilities of an entire vehicle with a reduced crew size ferris role in this research began when he connected with chris mikulski the principal investigator and coat test lead as part of conversations to connect researchers at texas a&m and the afc he has since enjoyed a collaboration with a broad group of distinguished engineers and scientists in the military and academic sectors his long-term goal in working with coat is to develop reliable means of assessing soldier cognitive workload during vehicle operations and using that assessment to inform which and how mission-relevant data are displayed to soldiers what is interesting to me about this is that this is a program where theres all of the depths of resource that the us military can offer to explore the future of ground transportation ferris said i always want to make sure that where my contributions are going are toward safer and better systems for soldiers and i feel this is both an exciting and noble research effort
dr r stanley williams hewlett packard enterprise company chair professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and director of the hewlett packard enterprise center for computer architecture research is ranked in the top tier of scientists in the world in the field of computer science and electronics from the guide2research 2021 top scientists ranking out of 1 000 scientists and researchers williams who ranked 115th in the world and 80th in the united states is the director of the center for computer architecture research at texas a&m williams has performed research in nano-electronics -ionics and -photonics and how to utilize the nonlinear dynamical properties of matter to perform computation efficiently before joining texas a&m in 2018 he was a senior fellow and senior vice president at hewlett-packard labs where he led the group that developed the first intentional solid-state version of leon chua's memristor prior to this he was a member of the technical staff at bell labs before joining the faculty at the university of california los angeles where he served as a chemistry professor for 15 years he was named one of the top 10 visionaries in the field of electronics by ee times and has received awards in chemistry applied physics and nanotechnology williams has been issued more than 230 us patents published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers and presented hundreds of invited plenary keynote and named lectures at international scientific technical and business events the guide2research 2021 top scientists ranking is based on the h-index metric provided by google scholar and dblp and includes only leading scientists with an h-index of at least 40 williams has over 67 000 citations an h-index of 116 i am gratified that so many researchers have found my work to be sufficiently interesting and useful to be cited in their publications williams said
"batteries are a part of everyday modern life powering everything from laptops phones and robot vacuums to hearing aids pacemakers and even electric cars but these batteries potentially pose safety and environmental risks in a study recently published in cell reports physical science researchers at texas a&m university investigated the components of a different kind of battery a metal-free water-based battery which would reduce the flammable nature of standard batteries and decrease the number of metal elements used in their production most batteries are li-ion and contain lithium and cobalt which are globally strategic elements meaning they are located only in certain countries but essential to the global economy and united states battery manufacturing ""this work enables the future design of metal-free aqueous batteries "" said dr jodie lutkenhaus professor and axalta coating systems chair in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m ""by going metal-free we can address the pressing global demand for strategic metals used in batteries and by going aqueous we replace the flammable volatile electrolyte with water"" using a very sensitive measurement technique called electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring researchers were able to determine how electrons ions and water transfer in the electrode as it is charged and discharged ""with this information we showed that enhanced electrode-water interactions lead to improved energy storage performance "" she said the energy storage capacity was lower than that of traditional li-ion batteries but this paves the way for a more sustainable and less volatile battery in the future"
"the research is in its initial stages and there's opportunity for various applications in the real world one particular potential is implantable batteries for medical devices lutkenhaus' interest began when she learned about the strain on strategic elements such a lithium and cobalt due to increased battery manufacturing by using completely different materials such as we do with polymers here we remove metals from the picture completely "" she said ""my favorite aspect of this work is our ability to deeply characterize the molecular transport processes associated with this redox polymer only in the last few years have we been able to resolve such effects on this time and mass scale"" for the future lutkenhaus said they will need to identify more polymers that are compatible with the design once we have that we can produce a high-performance full-cell for practical use she said this project is supported by the us department of energy-basic energy sciences program"
the introduction of lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries has revolutionized technology as a whole leading to major advances in consumer goods across nearly all sectors battery-powered devices have become ubiquitous across the world while the availability of technology is generally a good thing the rapid growth has led directly to several key ethical and environmental issues surrounding the use of li-ion batteries current li-ion batteries utilize significant amounts of cobalt which in several well-documented international cases is mined using child labor in dangerous working environments additionally only a very small percentage of li-ion batteries are recycled increasing the demand for cobalt and other strategic elements a multidisciplinary team of researchers from texas a&m university has made a breakthrough that could lead to battery production moving away from cobalt in an article published in the may issue of nature dr jodie lutkenhaus axalta coating systems chair and professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and dr karen wooley distinguished professor in the department of chemistry and holder of the wt doherty-welch chair in chemistry in the college of science outline their research into a new battery technology platform that is completely metal free this new battery technology platform utilizes a polypeptide organic radical construction by moving away from lithium and working with these polypeptides which are components of proteins it really takes us into this realm of not only avoiding the need for mining precious metals but opening opportunities to power wearable or implantable electronic devices and also to easily recycle the new batteries said wooley recently honored as the 2021 sec professor of the year they [polypeptide batteries] are degradable they are recyclable they are non-toxic and they are safer across the board the all-polypeptide organic radical battery composed of redox-active amino-acid macromolecules also solves the problem of recyclability the components of the new battery platform can be degraded on demand in acidic conditions to generate amino acids other building blocks and degradation products one of the major breakthroughs in this research according to lutkenhaus the big problem with lithium-ion batteries right now is that they're not recycled to the degree that we are going to need for the future electrified transportation economy lutkenhaus added the rate of recycling lithium-ion batteries right now is in the single digits there is valuable material in the lithium-ion battery but it's very difficult and energy intensive to recover the development of a metal-free all-polypeptide organic radical battery composed of redox-active amino-acid macromolecules that degrade on demand marks significant progress toward sustainable recyclable batteries that minimize dependence on strategic metals as a next step wooley and lutkenhaus have begun working in collaboration with dr daniel tabor assistant professor in the department of chemistry through a 2020 texas a&m triads for transformation (t3) grant that aims to utilize machine learning to optimize the materials and structure of the battery platform
the lead authors on the paper are tan nguyen a current postdoctoral associate at the university of michigan and former doctoral student from the texas a&m department of chemistry and alexandra easley a doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m this work was financially supported by the national science foundation the welch foundation and the us department of energy office of science
dr jeyavijayan jv rajendran assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is partnering with intel corporation for the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) structured array hardware for automatically realized applications (sahara) project the three-year partnership enables the design of custom chips that include advanced security countermeasure technologies for widespread applications including government security there are two well-understood processor technologies in the semiconductor industry first are field-programmable gate arrays (fpgas) which provide basic functionality that can be modified post-production while this means better security in the supply chain because the manufacturer has no glimpse into the design being implemented it comes at the cost of lower performance and higher power consumption second are application specific integrated circuits (asics) which provide fixed functionality meaning the design cannot be modified post-manufacturing unlike in fpgas the manufacturers of asics are provided the design that is being implemented while this may pose security risks in the supply chain it allows for superior performance less power consumption and less area overall the sahara project which began in december 2020 is facilitating the automated conversion of fpga designs into secure asics to not only strengthen the security but also improve overall processor performance what intel is doing with this asic technology is they are taking the best of both worlds where you can have the configurability of fpga style but close to asic-like performance rajendran said intels structured asics are called easics an intermediate technology between fpgas and standard-cell asics
the goal of the sahara program is to utilize structured asics to meet the performance and security needs of the electronic components used in diverse department of defense applications said kostas amberiadis asic design engineer at intel corporation to accomplish this goal intel will develop a version of its easic tm technology with added security and ip (intellectual property) protection while significantly automating the whole design flow to drastically reduce its development time especially when converting from fpgas to strengthen chip security the sahara project will also explore reverse engineering countermeasures to prevent potential counterfeiting attacks fpgas are widely used in military applications today but the prospect and efficiency that structured asics deliver offer a promising look into the future sahara aims to enable a 60% reduction in design time a 10-times reduction in engineering costs and a 50% reduction in power consumption by automating the fpga-to-structured asics conversion said serge leef a program manager in darpas microsystems technology office in a press release announcing the project because of the nature of the program and the nature of the chips that we are trying to protect this project will not only bolster the semiconductor industry but will also have widespread impact in industries such as the smart grid and other critical infrastructure elements rajendran said rajendrans students and postdoctoral researchers are also working closely with intel on this project and receiving invaluable experience at this stage of their academic and professional careers to bridge the gap between academia and industry rajendran has worked with darpa in the past on partnerships such as the obfuscated manufacturing for gps program and the ongoing automatic implementation of secure silicon program this research was in part funded by the us government the views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies either expressed or implied of the us government
there is nothing glamorous about infrastructure even these days as congress debates the meaning of the word however modern high-quality infrastructure is critical to a vital strategic goal shared by the texas a&m university system and the us army: to build a world-class ecosystem for military technology innovation on the rellis campus its called the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) the texas a&m system board of regents took an important step toward this shared goal by appropriating $131 million for infrastructure improvements on the west side of rellis the improvements will undergird two testing ranges for next-generation technology: the innovation proving ground (ipg) and the ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range the infrastructure package includes basic improvements water sewer and electrical power to areas around the runways of the former army and air force base it also includes fiber cabling to fully support 5th-generation (5g) internet capabilities 5g is really important to our partners and potential partners said ross guieb a retired army colonel serving as bcdc executive director the intel community dod (department of defense) and defense industry leaders are all watching closely with interest and excitement army commanders and other us military leaders eagerly await the completion of the bcdc over the next several years the $200 million complex is the result of a partnership between the us army futures command and the texas a&m system texas a&m engineering experiment station and the state of texas the bcdc includes the ipg the bam and other facilities that will bring together researchers from us universities the military and the private sector for collaboration demonstrations and high-tech testing of military prototypes the regents also approved three amendments to enhance bams instrumentation for research and testing bam will host enclosed testing of hypersonic vehicles directed-energy beams and the impact that hypersonic blasts have on various materials the changes improve the tubes rail guidance system add blast target tanks and a soft catch assembly that will safely recover flown objects for post-flight analysis and data collection the combined cost of the changes is $35 million bringing the total estimated cost to about $425 million at one kilometer long and 25 meters in diameter bam will be the nations largest enclosed hypersonic test range it will bridge a critical gap in us research capacity between lab-scale experiments and open-range tests which can cost tens of millions of dollars per test
the texas a&m university system board of regents has named dr john hurtado interim vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering at texas a&m university and interim agency director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) he will assume the duties of the position june 1 hurtado will oversee administration of the college and agency while a national search is conducted to fill the positions hurtado joined the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m in 2001 and serves as deputy director and chief technology officer for the bush combat development complex and professor of aerospace engineering his research areas include aerospace systems and robotics and his work is being used at nasa and sandia national laboratories his patented algorithms were developed for unique miniature robots that the smithsonian institution recently obtained for its permanent collection in the national museum of american history he earned his bachelors degree in aerospace engineering from san diego state university and his masters and doctorate in aerospace engineering from texas a&m hurtado replaces outgoing vice chancellor of engineering and national laboratories dean of the texas a&m college of engineering and agency director for tees dr m katherine banks who was named to these positions in 2011 and was appointed the 26th president of texas a&m in march
"every day billions of photos and videos are posted to various social media applications the problem with standard images taken by a smartphone or digital camera is that they only capture a scene from a specific point of view but looking at it in reality we can move around and observe it from different viewpoints computer scientists are working to provide an immersive experience for the users that would allow them to observe a scene from different viewpoints but it requires specialized camera equipment that is not readily accessible to the average person to make the process easier dr nima kalantari professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university and graduate student qinbo li have developed a machine-learning-based approach that would allow users to take a single photo and use it to generate novel views of the scene the benefit of our approach is that now we are not limited to capturing a scene in a particular way said kalantari we can download and use any image on the internet even ones that are 100 years old and essentially bring it back to life and look at it from different angles further details about their work were published in the journal association for computing machinery transactions on graphics view synthesis is the process of generating novel views of an object or scene using images taken from given points of view to create novel view images information related to the distance between the objects in the scene is used to create a synthetic photo taken from a virtual camera placed at different points within the scene over the past few decades several approaches have been developed to synthesize these novel view images but many of them require the user to manually capture multiple photos of the same scene from different viewpoints simultaneously with specific configurations and hardware which is difficult and time-consuming however these approaches were not designed to generate novel view images from a single input image to simplify the process the researchers have proposed doing the same process but with just one image ""when you have multiple images you can estimate the location of objects in the scene through a process called triangulation said kalantari that means you can tell for example that there's a person in front of the camera with a house behind them and then mountains in the background this is extremely important for view synthesis but when you have a single image all of that information has to be inferred from that one image which is challenging"" with the recent rise of deep learning which is a subfield of machine learning where artificial neural networks learn from large amounts of data to solve complex problems the problem of single image view synthesis has garnered considerable attention despite this approach being more accessible for the user it is a challenging application for the system to handle because there is not enough information to estimate the location of the objects in the scene to train a deep-learning network to generate a novel view based on a single input image they showed it a large set of images and their corresponding novel view images although it is an arduous process the network learns how to handle it over time an essential aspect of this approach is to model the input scene to make the training process more straightforward for the network to run but in their initial experiments kalantari and li did not have a way to do this ""we realized that scene representation is critically important to effectively train the network "" said kalantari to make the training process more manageable the researchers converted the input image into a multiplane image which is a type of layered 3d representation first they broke down the image into planes at different depths according to the objects in the scene then to generate a photo of the scene from a new viewpoint they moved the planes in front of each other in a specific way and combined them using this representation the network learns to infer the location of the objects in the scene to effectively train the network kalantari and li introduced it to a dataset of over 2 000 unique scenes that contained various objects they demonstrated that their approach could produce high-quality novel view images of a variety of scenes that are better than previous state-of-the-art methods the researchers are currently working on extending their approach to synthesize videos as videos are essentially a bunch of individual images played rapidly in sequence they can apply their approach to generate novel views of each of those images independently at different times but when the newly created video is played back the picture flickers and is not consistent we are working to improve this aspect of the approach to make it suitable to generate videos from different viewpoints said kalantari the single image view synthesis method can also be used to generate refocused images it could also potentially be used for virtual reality and augmented reality applications such as video games and various software types that allow you to explore a particular visual environment the project was funded in part by a grant awarded by the texas a&m triads for transformation seed-grant program"
a team of texas a&m university researchers is analyzing how a network of localized nodes can implement machine-learning applications such as object recognition in a distributed fashion the research team includes dr alfredo garcia professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and dr jeff huang associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering this proposed methodology stands as an alternative to the widely acknowledged federated learning approach federated learning is a machine-learning technique used for training models across multiple decentralized edge devices or servers that hold local data samples without exchanging them since its inception the federated learning approach is a more effective method to traditional centralized machine-learning techniques where all of the local data sets are uploaded to one server whats really exciting in this research is that it shows a robust learning approach for learning models from heterogeneous data streams which are becoming ubiquitous in the real world huang said this research focuses on a more robust alternative to federated learning by considering the approach in which each node periodically updates its own model based upon local data and a network regularization penalty so each node checks in with neighboring nodes every so often to make sure its own model is not too offbeat from that of its neighbors a node is a piece of the network in charge of training a model to put this into perspective there can be millions of nodes processing information at the same time within a matter of seconds nodes will share data with the server but either cant or wont share data with other nodes in a federated learning implementation participating devices need to only periodically communicate parameter updates to a central node where the model parameters are stored however when data streams are heterogeneous both in data rate and quality the model identified by federated learning may not be of the highest quality when the data streams with higher data rates also have lower precision there is a good chance node-producing parameter updates at the fastest pace do not necessarily have the highest quality updates you also run the risk of being exposed to bad data or noise that comes from bad nodes for example photos coming from the latest iphone model with a high-quality camera will have different data quality than photos coming from an iphone 5 federated learning is useful when streaming data across devices is housed in differing geographic locations however there is a downside when there is significant communication overhead and data cannot be transferred to a single location in a timely fashion this is namely the case for high-resolution video in this particular scenario assembling a diverse batch of data points in a central processing location to update a model involves significant latency and may ultimately not be practical in follow-up work with his team garcia is examining the application of the network approach to multitask learning where different nodes do not share the same learning objective or task local model exchange shows similarities between different tasks to provide better learning outcomes
"scientists from texas a&m university have developed an extension to an ordinary cellphone that turns it into an instrument capable of detecting chemicals drugs biological molecules and pathogens the advance is reported in reviews of scientific instruments by aip publishing modern cellphones include high-quality cameras capable of detecting low levels of light and eliminating digital noise through software processing of the captured images recent work has taken advantage of this sensitivity to produce cellphone cameras that can be used as portable microscopes and heart rate detectors the current advance is based on two types of spectroscopy one type known as fluorescence spectroscopy measures the fluorescent light emitted by a sample another known as raman spectroscopy is useful for detecting molecules such as dna and rna that do not fluoresce or emit light at very low intensities both types were used to develop this cellphone detector the system includes an inexpensive diode laser as a light source oriented at right angles to the line connecting the sample and the cellphone camera the right-angle arrangement prevents back-reflected light from entering the camera ""in addition this right-angle excitation geometry has the advantage of being easier to use for the analysis of samples where a bulk property is to be measured "" said author dr peter rentzepis the investigators studied a variety of samples using their constructed cellphone detector including common solvents such as ethanol acetone isopropyl alcohol and methanol they recorded the raman spectra of solid objects including a carrot and a pellet of bacteria carrots were chosen for this study because they contain the pigment carotene the laser light used in their system has a wavelength that is easily absorbed by this orange pigment and by pigments in the bacteria the investigators compared the sensitivity of their system to the most sensitive industrial raman spectrometers available the ratio of signal to noise for the commercial instrument was about 10 times higher than the cellphone system the sensitivity of the cellphone detector could however be doubled by using a single rgb channel for analysis the system has a rather limited dynamic range but the investigators note that this problem can be easily overcome through several hdr or high dynamic range applications that combine images from multiple exposures the additional components including the laser add a cost of only about $50 to the price of a typical cellphone making this system an inexpensive but accurate tool for detecting chemicals and pathogens in the field"
ah that all-too-familiar ache at the back of the neck with roughly 80% of jobs being sedentary and often requiring several hours of sitting stooped in front of a computer screen neck pain is a growing occupational hazard smartphones and other devices have also caused people to bend their necks for prolonged periods but is bad posture solely to blame in a recent study researchers at texas a&m university have found that while poor neck and head postures are indeed the primary determinants of neck pain body mass index age and the time of the day also influence the necks ability to perform sustained or repeated movements neck pain is one of the leading and fastest-growing causes of disability in the world said dr xudong zhang professor in the wm michael barnes '64 department of industrial and systems engineering our study has pointed to a combination of work and personal factors that strongly influence the strength and endurance of the neck over time more importantly since these factors have been identified they can then be modified so that the neck is in better health and pain is avoided or deterred the results of the study are published online in the journal human factors a flagship journal in the field of human factors and ergonomics according to the global burden of disease study by the institute for health metrics and evaluation neck pain is ranked as the fourth leading cause of global disability one of the main reasons for neck pain has been attributed to lifestyle particularly when people spend long durations of time with their necks bent forward however zhang said a systematic quantitative study has been lacking on how personal factors such as sex weight age and work-related habits can affect neck strength and endurance for their experiments zhang and his team recruited 20 adult men and 20 adult women with no previous neck-related issues to perform controlled head-neck exertions in a laboratory setting further instead of asking the participants to hold a specific neck posture for a long time similar to what might happen at a workplace they performed sustained-till exhaustion head-neck exertions in the laboratory conducting experiments where subjects do long tasks with their neck can take several hours of data collection which is not very practical for the experimenters and of course the participants in our study said zhang to solve this problem our experiments were strategically designed to mimic workplace neck strains but in a shorter period of time in these exercises subjects were seated and asked to put on an augmented helmet that allowed them to exert measurable force by the neck then the researchers asked them to either keep their necks straight or maintain their neck tilted in a forward or backward position in this position a force was applied to their head and neck on an adjustable frame this exertion was either to their maximum capacity or half of it before testing the researchers noted their subjects age body mass index and the time of day when zhang and his team analyzed their data they found that as expected work-related factors like head/neck posture play a very important role in determining both neck strength and endurance but they also observed that while there was no significant difference between male and female subjects in neck endurance body mass index was a significant predictor of neck endurance also to their surprise the time of day affected the necks ability to sustain an exertion without fatigue it is intuitive to think that over the course of the day our necks get more tired since we use it more said zhang but roughly half of our participants were tested in the morning and the remaining in the afternoon also some of the participants had day jobs and some worked the night shift despite this we consistently found the time-of-day effect on neck endurance the researchers said their database of neck strength and endurance is also necessary for building advanced musculoskeletal biomechanical models of the neck which can then be used to for example tease apart specific neck muscles that are more vulnerable to injury looking ahead we might have the data to begin evaluating if patients recovering from neck injuries are ready to return to work based on whether their neck strength and endurance are within the norm said zhang also engineers and designers could utilize our data to make wearable devices like helmets that are more ergonomic and less stressful on the neck other contributors to this work include dr suman chowdhury from texas tech university and yu zhou bocheng wan and curran reddy from the industrial and systems engineering department this research is funded by the national institute for occupational safety and health part of the centers for disease control and prevention
will it be possible to design materials that are unfazed by extreme temperatures in the near future in a study published in the journal nature computational materials researchers at texas a&m university have described a computational tool to evaluate a materials suitability for high-temperature applications such as gas turbines for jet engines and electrical power generators the computational framework which incorporates artificial intelligence and basic physics can forecast how materials will behave under harsh conditions in a fraction of the time compared to other algorithms we have used an innovative and interdisciplinary approach for screening materials that is a million times faster than traditional techniques said dr raymundo arróyave professor in the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university and corresponding author on the study currently these types of calculations even for a small temperature above absolute zero are an enormous challenge because they are computationally expensive since the late 1800s gas turbines have been the workhorse of power generation this drum-shaped machine lined with a series of bent or curved blades converts chemical energy from burning fuel into mechanical energy when the turbines blades rotate this motion is then exploited either to propel an aircraft or generate electricity gas turbines operate in high-temperature corrosive conditions making them prone to damage and progressive deterioration and so designing materials that can withstand extreme temperatures has been an ongoing pursuit among an array of high-temperature tolerant materials ceramics known as max phases are known to have properties that bridge the gap between conventional ceramics and metals in other words they are less brittle than ceramics and have higher temperature tolerance than many metals these materials are ideal candidates for structural components for gas turbines and heat-resistant coatings said dr miladin radovic professor in the materials science and engineering department and a senior author on the study however only a few out of hundreds of possible max phases have been experimentally verified to be high-temperature corrosion and oxidation-resistant
the researchers noted that given the vast number of elements that can be used to make max phases and an even greater number of ways of combining them the task of experimentally verifying how each composite will behave at high temperatures becomes impractical on the other hand computational techniques such as purely machine-learning algorithms have not been as robust at predicting the materials behavior at nonzero temperatures as an alternative to experiments and machine learning physics-based mathematical models offer a rigorous method to evaluate the properties of max phases at different temperatures among these models the most established one called density functional theory can account for the behavior of materials with minimal input data but this theory best applies to materials at their lowest energy state called the ground state to predict their behavior at elevated temperatures more complex and time-consuming calculations are needed these calculations scale very poorly said arróyave for perspective if we want to use density functional theory to calculate the properties of a candidate material at the lowest temperature of zero kelvins that is at the ground state it might take about a day of computational time but now if you want to calculate the same properties at a finite temperature say 1000 kelvins it can take weeks further he noted that predicting the behavior of materials when exposed to oxygen at elevated temperatures is more complicated and may take months or longer even when using thousands of supercomputer processors at a time hence instead of relying solely on just one method arróyave and his team used a three-pronged approach that included a combination of density functional theory machine learning and computational thermodynamics the researchers first calculated some fundamental properties of max phases at zero kelvins with density functional theory next those calculations were used as inputs to a machine-learning model in this way the researchers replaced otherwise computationally expensive calculations from density functional theory with machine-learning models then they used computational thermodynamics to determine the most stable compounds for a given temperature and a certain max phase composition lets consider a max phase made of titanium aluminum and carbon at higher temperatures we could have for example carbon dioxide carbon monoxide and other combinations of carbon and oxygen that might compete to exist said arróyave using our framework one can now determine which phases or combinations we can expect at that temperature how much of it and whether that can be detrimental simply put we can now quickly tell whether the material will decompose at a given temperature the researchers noted that although they tested their computational framework on a few candidate max phases the algorithm can be used for gauging the behavior of other existing or novel materials as well the research will help in rapidly ruling out those elements that might form unstable oxides at the material design phase said arróyave we can then use these materials to build superior gas turbines and other machines that can withstand even the harshest environmental conditions with minimal wear and tear over time these high-performance turbines will benefit not just the aviation and energy industry but also consumers who will see reduced costs this research is funded by the designing materials to revolutionize and engineer our future grant from the national science foundation
dr karim ahmed assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university will collaborate with dr anders david ragnar andersson at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) to conduct research to better understand the breakdown of nuclear fuel in order to extend the nuclear fuel cycle the heavy metals that compose the fuel must have a targeted high burnup burnup is a measure of how much uranium is burned in the reactor the faster the energy is extracted from a nuclear source the more efficient the reactor runs this reduces the downtime for refueling as well as the number of fresh nuclear fuel elements needed at high burnup values however the fuel sometimes fragments presenting a potential technical challenge that is poorly understood this is where ahmed and his research team come in they were awarded a developmental fellowship as part of the 2019-20 edition of the texas a&m university system national laboratories office collaborative research program with lanl to pursue this issue we are developing a physics-based multiscale modeling approach to understand this fuel fragmentation phenomenon said ahmed while other research groups at texas a&m and lanl have developed independent submodels to look at different aspects of the complicated physical process of fuel fragmentation ahmeds project is the first step in integrating the models the current regulatory limit of fuel peak burnup sits at 62 gigawatt-days per metric ton of uranium but the united states nuclear industry is considering increasing this limit to improve the economy and efficiency of electricity production before this extension can be approved the nuclear regulatory commission will likely require nuclear power plants to analyze a number of potential operational occurrences as well as their consequences a major factor in such analyzed scenarios is the behavior of fuel rods at high burnup we hope that our work will provide the nuclear community with guidelines to assess the most limiting conditions and possible mitigation strategies for safely extending the fuel peak burnup said ahmed ahmeds lanl collaborator andersson is an expert on atomistic modeling of nuclear materials as a long-term goal we plan on investigating the structure-composition-property relationships in nuclear materials through integrating physics-based multiscale models guided by the principles of integrated computational materials science and engineering he said
the texas a&m university system national laboratories office (nlo) was formed by the chancellor to be a conduit for expanding engagement with the national laboratories for faculty staff and students of the a&m system this office engages with all department of energy and national nuclear security agency laboratories and sites the nlo has developed a multi-element program to help texas a&m system researchers develop collaborative ties with researchers at los alamos national laboratory (lanl); execute the texas a&m system and lanl collaborative research projects; and formalize long-term relationships where appropriate such as through joint appointments
dr zachary grasley has been named the new head of the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university effective sept 1grasley has been the director of the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) at texas a&m since january 2018i am really excited for the opportunity to lead this dynamic department with such talented and hard-working staff students and faculty he saidwhile directing the cir he helped facilitate the initiation and continued development of the research labs and established significant collaborations with key external partners grasleys research spans from fundamental studies on mechanisms and modeling to applied solutions that lead to intellectual property and commercializationhe is a fellow of the american society of civil engineers the american concrete institute and the american ceramic society grasley also has held leadership and service roles in the american concrete institute and the american ceramic societyhe originally joined texas a&m in 2006 after completing his bachelors degree in civil engineering at michigan technological university and his masters and doctoral degrees in civil engineering at the university of illinois at urbana-champaign grasley accepted a faculty position at virginia tech in 2012 and returned to texas a&m in 2014grasley holds the zachry chair for construction integration and is an inaugural presidential impact fellow he is also a professor in the materials science and engineering departmentgrasley replaces dr robin autenrieth who served in an interim capacity for one year before becoming department head in 2014 and will return to full-time faculty in the fall during her eight-plus-year tenure autenrieth has overseen the growth of the department and academic programs increased endowments and recruited highly talented faculty the environmental engineering degree program was developed under her directiondr autenrieth has done a great job and set us on the path to success grasley said the department is on an upward trajectory and is poised for major growth in research impact reputation and innovative education i am looking forward to helping shepherd this growth
automated vehicle (av) technology is widely acknowledged as a promising means to prevent crashes increase mobility among drivers and even lower emissions but there is a hesitancy toward autonomy among drivers which texas a&m university researchers are attempting to understand dr anthony mcdonald assistant professor and dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering utilize neuroergonomics to measure and model human driver trust in automated vehicles the team has been awarded a grant for this research by the national science foundation (nsf) one of the unique things about this project is that its focused on dynamic trust between humans and a machine or humans and an automated vehicle in this case mcdonald said some people are more predisposed to trust automation and systems than others our hypothesis is that trust among these people differs over time after interactions with the automation and our goal is to measure those changes objectively neuroergonomics is the study of the brain and behavior at work and is the pillar for driver trust measurements with autonomous vehicles more specifically the research team will use brain imaging and model trust and driver behavior to examine how trust calibration models influence dynamic trust and driving behavior the team will conduct two experiments using the driving simulator in industrial and systems engineering to gather driver behavior data and subjective neural and physiological trust measures to understand how particular regions of the brain communicate with each other or dont when a driver wagers trust the first year of this three-year project will begin with data collection on 60-100 participants we will then be able to see how trust builds over time and capture it using brain signals mehta said in the simulator we can also breach driver trust in the automated vehicle by having the simulators automation fail to overtake another vehicle in the manner expected we are interested to see how similar or different human-automation trust and its neural correlates are in the automated vehicle application space the research team will be able to map communication or lack thereof between different regions of the brain as trust in the av is built broken and repaired over the course of the experiment among drivers who vary in their levels of trust in automation these neural markers can be employed to develop trust detection models that can trigger trust calibration methods to ultimately increase the transparency of the vehicles reliability so that the driver can see and calibrate how much control they want to retain while driving our goal is to make substantial progress in our understanding of dynamic trust laying the groundwork for measuring and modeling it mcdonald said we want to produce fundamental contributions that ultimately lead to safer vehicle technology
the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university installed a new driving simulator to use in research pertaining to driving and autonomous vehicles it is a one-of-a-kind feature on campus that can be driven manually or autonomously with a 270-degree field of vision due to the many different types of research that might require a driving simulator interdisciplinary teamwork is almost inherent in any project that incorporates this technology
"cells sense and respond to the mechanical properties of the cellular microenvironment in the body changes in these properties which occur in a number of human pathologies including cancer can elicit abnormal responses from cells how the cells adapt to such changes in the mechanical microenvironment is not well understood a team of researchers at texas a&m university are working to understand cellular mechanosensing the ability to sense and respond to the mechanical properties of the microenvironment in a unique way dr tanmay lele unocal professor in the department of biomedical engineering department of chemical engineering and the department of translational medical sciences partnered with dr charles baer an evolutionary biologist at the university of florida together they used methods of experimental cellular evolution as a means to understand cellular adaptation to biomaterials of controlled mechanical properties the experiments were led by doctoral student purboja purkayastha from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and technical laboratory coordinator kavya pendyala from the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m before our work it was basically unknown if cells would evolve in controlled mechanical environments lele said we set out to test this possibility cells are products from hundreds of millions of years of evolution and their response to environments whether chemical or mechanical has likely evolved through a process of natural selection chemical constraints are well known to exert selection pressure on cell populations but whether the mechanical properties of a cells environment constitutes a significant agent of natural selection has never been investigated before many types of animal cells exhibit ""phenotypic plasticity"" they look and function differently in different mechanical environments there are two possible explanations for the plasticity of cells in different mechanical environments first the phenotypes may be optimal such that there is no better way for a cell to function in each environment alternatively the plasticity may be a compromise such that the phenotypic trait is optimal for a given mechanical context but suboptimal in other mechanical contexts the teams research demonstrated that cellular mechanosensing is in fact not optimal but a tradeoff using a combination of experimental cellular evolution on biomaterials of controlled stiffness genome sequencing simulations and gene expression analysis the team showed that cells evolve under selection pressure from biomaterials of controlled mechanical stiffness the teams research was recently published in the journal molecular biology and evolution lele said that experimental cell evolution is a good approach to better understand the mechanisms underlying cellular mechanosensing we are currently using experimental cellular evolution to understand how cancer cells which have a great genomic variation respond to the altered mechanical stiffness and other mechanical properties of tumor microenvironments lele said further the fact that cells can be evolved on biomaterials of controlled properties in vitro opens up new ways to generate engineered cells with properties optimal for those properties"
covid-19 caused by the sars-cov-2 has plagued our world over the last year in just one year we have lost over half a million americans and an estimated 25 million worldwide to this virus the uncertainties about its long-term effects as well as how and where it spreads particularly indoors continues to motivate researchers and scientists to find solutions to contain the virus dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and his collaborators designed an experimental system to show that exposure of the virus to a very high temperature even if applied less than a second can be sufficient to neutralize the virus so that it can no longer infect another human host in march 2020 the united states began shutting down when covid-19 cases began to rise over the past year many have dealt with the severity of the virus that has negatively impacted our country in a number of ways with the pandemic still ongoing getting back to a more normal societal environment is important and this research is a step in the right direction applying heat to neutralize covid-19 has been demonstrated before but in previous studies temperatures were applied anywhere from one to 20 minutes this length of time is not a practical solution as applying heat for a long period of time is both difficult and costly han and his team have now demonstrated that heat treatment for less than a second completely inactivates the coronavirus providing a promising and efficient solution to mitigate the ongoing spread of covid-19 particularly through long-range airborne transmission
medistar corporation approached leadership and researchers from the college of engineering at texas a&m in the spring of 2020 to collaborate and explore the possibility of applying heat for a very short amount of time to kill covid-19 soon after han and his team got to work and built a system to investigate the feasibility of such a procedure their process works by heating one section of a stainless-steel tube through which the coronavirus-containing solution is run to a high temperature and then cooling the section immediately afterward this experimental setup allows the coronavirus running through the tube to be heated up only for a very short period of time through this rapid thermal process the team found the virus to be completely neutralized in a significantly shorter time than previously thought possible their initial results were released within two months of proof-of-concept experiments han explained that if the solution is heated to nearly 72 degrees celsius for about half a second it can reduce the virus titer or quantity of the virus in the solution by 100 000 times which is sufficient to neutralize the virus and prevent transmission the potential impact is huge said han i was curious of how high of temperatures we can apply in how short of a time frame and to see whether we can indeed heat-inactivate the coronavirus with only a very short time and whether such a temperature-based coronavirus neutralization strategy would work or not from a practical standpoint the biggest driver was ‘can we do something that can mitigate the situation with the coronavirus
their research was featured on the cover of the may issue of the journal biotechnology and bioengineering not only is this sub-second heat treatment a more efficient and practical solution to stopping the spread of covid-19 through the air but it also allows for the implementation of this method in existing systems such as heating ventilation and air conditioning systems it also can lead to potential applications with other viruses such as the influenza virus that are also spread through the air han and his collaborators expect that this heat-inactivation method can be broadly applied and have a true global impact influenza is less dangerous but still proves deadly each year so if this can lead to the development of an air purification system that would be a huge deal not just with the coronavirus but for other airborne viruses in general han said
in their future work the investigators will build a microfluidic-scale testing chip that will allow them to heat-treat viruses for much shorter periods of time for example 10s of milliseconds with the hope of identifying a temperature that will allow the virus to be inactivated even with such a short exposure time the lead authors of the work are electrical engineering postdoctoral researchers yuqian jiang and han zhang other collaborators on this project are dr julian l leibowitz professor and dr paul de figueiredo associate professor from the college of medicine at texas a&m; biomedical postdoctoral researcher jose a wippold; associate research scientist in microbial pathogenesis and immunology jyotsana gupta; and electrical engineering assistant research scientist jing dai this work has been supported by grants from medistar corporation several research personnel on the project team were also supported by grants from the national institutes of healths national institute of allergy and infectious diseases
with a global impetus toward utilizing more renewable energy sources wind presents a promising increasingly tapped resource despite the many technological advancements made in upgrading wind-powered systems a systematic and reliable way to assess competing technologies has been a challenge in a new case study researchers at texas a&m university in collaboration with international energy industry partners have used advanced data science methods and ideas from the social sciences to compare the performance of different wind turbine designs currently there is no method to validate if a newly created technology will increase wind energy production and efficiency by a certain amount said dr yu ding mike and sugar barnes professor in the wm michael barnes '64 department of industrial and systems engineering in this study we provided a practical solution to a problem that has existed in the wind industry for quite some time the results of their study are published in the journal renewable energy wind turbines convert the energy transferred from air hitting their blades to electrical energy as of 2020 about 84% of the total electricity produced in the united states comes from wind energy further over the next decade the department of energy plans to increase the footprint of wind energy in the electricity sector to 20% to meet the nations ambitious climate goals in keeping with this target there has been a surge of novel technologies particularly to the blades that rotate in the wind these upgrades promise an improvement in the performance of wind turbines and consequently power production however testing whether or how much these quantities will go up is arduous one of the many reasons that make performance evaluation difficult is simply because of the sheer size of wind turbines that are often several hundred feet tall testing the efficiency of these gigantic machines in a controlled environment like a laboratory is not practical on the other hand using scaled-down versions of wind turbines that fit into laboratory-housed wind tunnels yield inaccurate values that do not capture the performance of the actual-size wind turbines also the researchers noted that replicating the multitude of air and weather conditions that occur in the open field is hard in the laboratory hence ding and his team chose to collect data from inland wind farms for their study by collaborating with an industry that owned wind farms for their analysis they included 66 wind turbines on a single farm these machines were fitted with sensors to continuously track different items like the power produced by the turbines wind speeds wind directions and temperature in totality the researchers collected data over four-and-a-half years during which time the turbines received three technological upgrades to measure the change in power production and performance before and after the upgrade ding and his team could not use standard pre-post intervention analyses such as those used in clinical trials briefly in clinical trials the efficacy of a certain medicine is tested using randomized experiments with test groups that get the medication and controls that did not the test and the control groups are carefully chosen to be otherwise comparable so that the effect of the medicine is the only distinguishing factor between the groups however in their study the wind turbines could not be neatly divided into the test and control-like groups as needed for randomized experiments the challenge we have here is that even if we choose ‘test and ‘control turbines similar to what is done in clinical trials we still cannot guarantee that the input conditions like the winds that hit the blades during the recording period were the same for all the turbines said ding in other words we have a set of factors other than the intended upgrades that are also different pre- and post-upgrade hence ding and his team turned to an analytical procedure used by social scientists for natural experiments called causal inference here despite the confounding factors the analysis still allows one to infer how much of the observed outcome is caused by the intended action which in the case of the turbines was the upgrade for their causal inference-inspired analysis the researchers included turbines only after their input conditions were matched that is these machines were subject to similar wind velocities air densities or turbulence conditions during the recording period next using an advanced data comparison methodology that ding jointly developed with dr rui tuo assistant professor in the industrial and systems engineering department the research team reduced the uncertainty in quantifying if there was an improvement in wind turbine performance although the method used in the study requires many months of data collection ding said that it provides a robust and accurate way of determining the merit of competing technologies he said this information will be beneficial to wind operators who need to decide if a particular turbine technology is worthy of investment wind energy is still subsidized by the federal government but this will not last forever and we need to improve turbine efficiency and boost their cost-effectiveness said ding so our tool is important because it will help wind operators identify best practices for choosing technologies that do work and weed out those that don't ding received a texas a&m engineering experiment station impact award in 2018 for innovations in data and quality science impacting the wind energy industry other contributors to the research include nitesh kumar abhinav prakash and adaiyibo kio from the industrial and systems engineering department and technical staff of the collaborating wind company this research is funded by the national science foundation and industry
the texas a&m university system has named dr nancy currie-gregg interim deputy director and chief technology officer of the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) she assumed the duties of the position on june 7 currie-gregg will oversee the bcdcs research events and projects while a search is conducted to fill the position she joined the bcdc located on the texas a&m systems rellis campus in 2019 at its inception serving as the systems engineering and research integration lead currie-gregg is a holder of the don lummus ‘58 professorship of practice in engineering with appointments in the texas a&m university department of aerospace engineering and the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering she develops and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in aerospace human factors engineering quantitative risk analysis and reliability engineering system safety engineering and resilient systems engineering her research interests include spacecraft occupant protection human-robot interaction and the optimization of human performance and safety in engineered systems prior to joining texas a&m in the fall of 2017 currie-gregg spent the vast portion of her career supporting nasas human spaceflight programs and projects selected as an astronaut in 1990 she accrued more than 1 000 hours in space as a mission specialist on four space shuttle missions sts-57 in 1993; sts-70 in 1995; sts-88 the first international space station assembly mission in 1998; and sts-109 the fourth hubble space telescope servicing mission in 2002 a retired us army colonel and master army aviator she logged more than 4 000 flying hours in a variety of rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft following the space shuttle columbia tragedy in 2002 she led the space shuttle program safety and mission assurance office directing safety reliability and quality assurance efforts enabling the safe return to flight of the space shuttle in 2005 she was then selected as a senior executive member of the nasa engineering and safety center serving for over a decade as the chief engineer at the johnson space center then as principal engineer currie-gregg earned her bachelors degree in biological sciences (interdisciplinary) from the ohio state university her masters degree in safety engineering from the university of southern california and her doctorate in industrial engineering with a specialization in human factors engineering and artificial intelligence from the university of houston currie-gregg replaces outgoing bcdc deputy director and chief technology officer dr john e hurtado who was named interim vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering at texas a&m and interim agency director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in may
scientists are continuously looking for alternatives to fossil fuel-based power plants to diminish the adverse effects of fossil energy sources on the environment and to also build reliability researchers at texas a&m university are studying the viability of solar photovoltaic (pv) grid-tied systems on rooftops to fill that need dr fadhil al-aboosi a researcher with the texas a&m engineering experiment stations gas and fuel research center is leading a team studying the adoption of solar pv systems on building rooftops in countries that have a good solar energy potential even if they are oil or gas producers pv systems are composed of one or more solar panels combined with an inverter and other electrical and mechanical hardware that use energy from the sun to generate electricity we want to mitigate the negative impact of fossil energy sources on the environment to avoid using lands that can add more cost and may be used for other purposes such as agricultural and urban activities al-aboosi said this will address the energy and environmental challenges of the rapid growth of the building sector al-aboosi said the prospects of the implementation of a pv system on building rooftops in texas was studied theoretically for the first time to overcome the lack of performance behavior data of this technology specifically for the selected location the importance and accuracy of results comparing other previous research that has been carried out in the same direction is obtained from the comprehensive analysis of the system performance al-aboosi said we considered technical economic and environmental criteria solar irradiance intensity two modes of single-axis tracking the shadow effect and the pv cell temperature impact on system efficiency the results of their study preliminary evaluation of a rooftop grid-connected photovoltaic system installation under the climatic conditions of texas are detailed in the journal energies the evaluated parameters of the proposed system include energy output array yield (the ratio of daily monthly or yearly direct current energy output from a pv array) final yield array and system losses capacity factor performance ratio return on investment payback period levelized cost of energy and carbon emissions according to the overall performance results of the pv system which researchers propose to be installed on the eastern buildings of the texas a&m campus al-aboosi said they found this to be a technically economically and environmentally feasible solution for electricity generation and could play a significant role in the future energy mix of texas the result of the comparison for the proposed pv system with other pv systems located in different sites around the world showed that their performance does not only depend on solar radiation intensity but the operational and climatic conditions should be considered for any site that is selected to install the pv system he said al-aboosi said it was important to look at all these aspects in order to make solar energy a more viable solution the lack of research in this field either published or implemented environmental concerns and supporting variety in energy sources have sparked our curiosity to perform this study he said furthermore this study has been presented to make texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station a pioneer in this field as in other scientific fields it is worth noting that this work is the first study that was done hypothetically in texas based on theoretical analysis whereas all previous studies which were used for comparison with this study have been done based on experimental results at different locations worldwide he said the results were truly impressive and will pave the way for substantial developments in using rooftop grid-tied pv systems it can be used as a future vision especially the economic analysis for estimating the potential of investment incentives subsidies and feed-in tariff (a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy) to make implementing solar pv systems more attractive in texas and around the world al-aboosi said in any case the long-term performance of the rooftop grid-tied technologies in texas requires further research especially finding proper management strategies of flexible aggregating of distributed energy resources from fossil fuels and renewable energy sources into grid
despite the challenges of the past year the seventh annual texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) was held in may to recognize some of the most innovative startups in texas hosted by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and texas a&m university innovation partners this years competition was a hybrid platform due to covid-19 last years event was held completely online houston's starling medical headed by alex arevalos took home the top $50 000 prize the company is a digital health device company developing an artificial intelligence (ai) and tech-enabled platform as a safer smarter alternative to urinary catheters for individuals with neurogenic bladder dysfunction tnvc was an amazing experience for us at starling and it was such an honor to win the competition especially since there were so many exceptional companies there this year arevalos said this first-place prize and connections we made during it will be instrumental in accelerating our commercialization efforts to bring our life-transforming solution to our future users based on our accelerated regulatory path we expect to be able to bring our device to market in the next two years he said arevalos said the mission of starling medical is to restore the ability to urinate safely and conveniently to an underserved patient population with a condition called neurogenic bladder dysfunction currently the standard of care for these people is for them to self-catheterize five to eight times a day on a set schedule because they cant sense their bladders anymore or activate them on their own due to a neurological condition like a spinal cord injury or multiple sclerosis arevalos explained its an archaic process that leaves people with a significant reduction in quality of life and puts them at risk for costly life-threatening infections with our ai and tech-enabled device we call the urincontrol system our users will be able to urinate safely and conveniently again on their own at the push of a button in addition our device communicates with their smartphone to help them track their bladder fullness throughout the day and it uses ai and our connected telehealth portal to warn them if they are developing a urinary tract infection arevalos said after the necessity of pivoting to a completely virtual program last year due to covid-19 we were pleased to have had the vast majority of the competition in person this year said saurabh biswas executive director of tees commercialization and entrepreneurship division which founded this program tnvc now in its seventh year is a flagship event in the state-wide startup innovation ecosystem we are always excited to learn more about these texas startups and to hear directly from founders and inventors about their technologies that can not only improve the health and well-being of our citizens and the environment but also positively impact our local and state economies innovation partners was proud to co-host the texas a&m new ventures competition in collaboration with many entities across the a&m system a diverse group of sponsors and countless volunteers said andrew morriss vice president of entrepreneurship and economic development with the support of our generous sponsors tnvc had a record setting 2021 program despite all the challenges of the past year we know that the investment will come back to benefit our state economy many times over and benefit society through the impact of the game changing technologies the competing ventures commercialize the prize pool for this years competition was more than $500 000 in cash and in-kind services the full list of winners includes: 1st place $50 000 prize starling medical 2nd place $35 000 prize ictero medical 3rd place $25 000 prize koda health 4th place $15 000 prize microsilicon 5th place $10 000 prize vitanova biomedical 6th place $5 000 prize code walker elevator pitch competition: 1st $5 000 emgenisys 2nd $4 000 skypaws 3rd $2 000 solenic medical 4th $1 000 tybr health special prizes: brazos valley economic development corporation launch prize heliowave aggie angel network investment prize vitanova biomedical ph partners investment prize(s) koda health and starling medical southwest national pediatric device consortium prize(s) solenic medical and hero medical hollinden marketers & strategists services prize tybr health amerra visualization services prize tybr health paragon innovations prize(s) solenic medical and drill docs schwegman lundberg & woessner ip legal services prize tezcat laboratories biotex investment prize ictero medical innovators legal services prize(s) microsilicon and vitanova biomedical west webb albritton and gentry services prize riverwalk therapeutics axle – box services prize(s) skypaws and ava propulsion
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will collaborate with energy-sector stakeholders several national labs and universities in 10 states as the manager of a new ocean energy safety institute (oesi) the goals of the new oesi include safer workplaces improved environmental stewardship and greater us energy security through advances in technology monitoring equipment and workforce training the oesi will work to mitigate environmental and safety risks for both conventional and renewable energy technologies and prevent geohazards work-process incidents and offshore oil spills the consortium is organized under an agreement announced in may between tees and the us department of the interiors bureau of safety and environmental enforcement and the us department of energy the agreement calls for up to $40 million from the federal government over five years as well as about $12 million in investments from consortium members a smaller-scale oesi had been operated until recently by tees and two other texas universities now the oesi includes 16 universities in 10 states including texas a&m university and prairie view a&m university it also involves several national labs and more than 20 stakeholders representing conventional and renewable energy – including offshore wind and marine and hydrokinetic energy – from every offshore energy producing region tell us how we can help and well be right there said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m university system were delighted to contribute to the energy sector it fuels so many jobs in texas and across the country katherine banks texas a&m president is the principal investigator on the oesi project she applauded her team for pulling together a diverse array of stakeholders from the energy industry and academic institutions the universities involved in the oesi represent massachusetts maryland virginia florida louisiana texas oklahoma california washington and alaska we are glad the federal government selected texas a&m to support the energy industry banks said tees has nationally recognized expertise in shepherding advanced research and development john pappas tees director of center operations and adjunct faculty member in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m is the program manager for the oesi project he called the new consortium a game-changer we look forward to being part of the next generation of safety and environmental protection technologies for offshore energy production pappas said our team is extraordinarily diverse creative and talented it will offer new solutions and new ways of thinking tees will be responsible for developing a road map of projects in consultation with consortium members once approved by federal officials the road map becomes a guide for individual projects with yearly objectives while the department of the interiors bureau of safety and environmental enforcement and the department of energy will provide expertise direction and oversight through a joint steering committee (jsc) the oesi will operate independently the jsc will include experts in oil and gas offshore wind and marine and hydrokinetic energy which is the method of converting energy from waves tides ocean currents and thermal and dissolved-salt gradients into electricity faisal khan will be the oesi technical director a chemical engineering professor khan is a leading researcher in offshore technology and safety engineering he emphasized that consortium projects will entail researchers from a variety of engineering fields: ocean industrial chemical civil mechanical and others this is a multidisciplinary holistic approach khan said we will provide technical support and safety and environmental protection technologies for oil gas wind and wave energy production note: the views and conclusions in this release are those of its authors and should not be interpreted as representing the views or policies of the us government mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement by the us government
when the covid-19 pandemic began to inundate the united states in early 2020 many researchers looked at how they could adapt their current work to help fight the pandemic dr limei tian assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university and her team are developing a novel way to diagnose covid-19 through a mask we are developing a reliable noninvasive point-of-care biosensor that can directly capture and detect sars-cov-2 for rapid detection and surveillance of covid-19 tian said one of tians research focuses is in organic and inorganic hybrid materials for physical chemical and biological sensors and multifunctional surfaces and interfaces as opportunities to research ways to detect and fight covid-19 started tian began to adapt biosensors designed for other disease diagnoses to instead detect covid-19 tian said the goal is to develop a biosensor patch that can be placed into a mask/scarf as a person exhales their breath can be captured the sensor then be easily removed and placed in a hand-held reader for analysis in addition to covid-19 the platform technology being developed in our lab can be readily adapted for rapidly detecting and monitoring other infectious respiratory diseases tian said the team is in the sensor development process tian said one challenge has been improving the sensitivity of the biosensors to capture low concentration of biomarkers in the breath tian was recently recognized for her work in biosensors by receiving the trailblazer r21 award from the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering part of the national institutes of health the award is an opportunity for new and early-stage investigators to pursue research programs that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and behavioral sciences
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
hydrogels are commonly used inside the body to help in tissue regeneration and drug delivery however once inside they can be challenging to control for optimal use a team of researchers in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is developing a new way to manipulate the gel by using light graduate student patrick lee and dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor are developing a new class of hydrogels that can leverage light in a multitude of ways light is a particularly attractive source of energy as it can be confined to a predefined area as well as be fine-tuned by the time or intensity of light exposure their work was recently published in the journal advanced materials light‐responsive hydrogels are an emerging class of materials used for developing noninvasive noncontact precise and controllable medical devices in a wide range of biomedical applications including photothermal therapy photodynamic therapy drug delivery and regenerative medicine lee said light-responsive biomaterials are often used in biomedical applications; however current light sources such as ultraviolet light and visible light cannot sufficiently penetrate the tissue to interact with the hydrogel instead the team is researching near-infrared (nir) light which has a higher penetration depth the team is using a new class of two-dimensional nanomaterials known as molybdenum disulfide (mos2) which has shown negligible toxicity to cells and superior nir absorption these nanosheets with high photothermal conversion efficiency can absorb and convert nir light to heat which can be developed to control thermoresponsive materials in the groups previous study published in advanced materials certain polymers react with mos2 nanosheets to form hydrogels building on this discovery the team further utilizes mos2 nanosheets and thermoresponsive polymers to control the hydrogel under nir light by photothermal effect this work leverages light to activate the dynamic polymer–nanomaterials interactions gaharwar said upon nir exposure mos2 acts as a crosslink epicenter by connecting with multiple polymeric chains via defect‐driven click chemistry which is unique nir light allows internal formation of therapeutic hydrogels in the body for precise drug delivery for cancer therapy most of the drugs can be retained within the tumor which will ease the side effects of chemotherapy moreover nir light can generate heat inside the tumors to ablate cancer cells known as photothermal therapy therefore a synergetic combination of photothermal therapy and chemotherapy has shown a higher efficacy in destroying cancer cells this study is funded by the new innovator award from the national institutes of health as well as the texas a&m president's excellence fund through x‐grant and t3
the texas a&m engineering experiment station's health care market segment advances research in the key areas of medicine health care-related technology and life sciences using a multi-disciplinary approach our strengths include bioinformatics computational biology and systems biology for agricultural environmental and life sciences next generation medical devices and systems and education training and outreach programs for pharmaceutical workforce development
to help patients manage their mental wellness between appointments researchers at texas a&m university have developed a smart device-based electronic platform that can continuously monitor the state of hyperarousal one of the key signs of psychiatric distress they said this advanced technology could read facial cues analyze voice patterns and integrate readings from built-in vital signs sensors on smartwatches to determine if a patient is under stress furthermore the researchers noted that the technology could provide feedback and alert care teams if there is an abrupt deterioration in the patients mental health mental health can change very rapidly and a lot of these changes remain hidden from providers or counselors said dr farzan sasangohar assistant professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering our technology will give providers and counselors continuous access to patient variables and patient status and i think it's going to have a lifesaving implication because they can reach out to patients when they need it plus it will empower patients to manage their mental health better the researchers integrated electronic monitoring and feedback platform is described in the journal of psychiatric practice unlike some physical illnesses that can usually be treated with a few doctor visits people with mental health needs can require an extended period of care between visits to a health care provider information on a patients mental health status has been lacking hence unforeseen deterioration in mental health has a limited chance of being addressed for example a patient with anxiety disorder may experience a stressful life event triggering extreme irritability and restlessness which may need immediate medical attention but this patient may be between appointments on the other hand health care professionals have no way to know about their patients ongoing struggle with mental health which can prevent them from providing the appropriate care hence patient-reported outcomes between visits are critical for designing effective health care interventions for mental health so that there is continued improvement in the patients wellbeing to fill in this gap sasangohar and his team worked with clinicians and researchers in the department of psychiatry at houston methodist hospital to develop a smart electronic platform to help assess a patients mental wellbeing the hospital has the largest inpatient psychiatry clinic in the houston area said sasangohar with this collaboration we could include thousands of patients that had given consent for psychiatric monitoring sasangohars collaborators at houston methodist hospital were already using an off-the-shelf patient navigation tool called caresense this software can be used to send reminders and monitoring questions to patients to better assess their wellbeing for instance individuals at risk for self-harm can be prompted to take questionnaires for major depressive disorder periodically rather than solely relying on the patients subjective assessment of their mental health sasangohar and his team also developed a whole suite of software for automatized hyperarousal analysis that can be easily installed on smartphones and smartwatches these programs gather input from face and voice recognition applications and sensors already built in smartwatches such as heart rate sensors and pedometers the data from all of these sources then train machine-learning algorithms to recognize patterns that are aligned with the normal state of arousal once trained the algorithms can continuously look at readings coming from the sensors and recognition applications to determine if an individual is in an elevated arousal state the key here is triangulation said sasangohar each of these methods on their own say facial sentiment analysis show promise to detect the mental state albeit with limitations but when you combine that information with the voice sentiment analysis as well as physiological indicators of distress the diagnosis and inference become much more powerful and clearer sasangohar noted that both the subjective evaluation of mental state and the objective evaluation from the machine-learning algorithms are integrated to make a final assessment of the state of arousal for a given individual while their technologys prototype is ready the researchers said they still need to improve the battery life of smartphones carrying their software since the algorithms guzzle a lot of power further they noted that they have to address usability issues that is any issues that prohibit patients from using their technology such as difficulty in navigating their application because of the stigmatization that surrounds mental illness we wanted to build a mental health monitoring device that was very discreet said sasangohar so we chose off-the-shelf products like smartphones and then build sophisticated applications that operate within these devices to make monitoring mental health discreet other contributors to the study include dr christopher fowler and dr alok madan from the university of texas mcgovern school of medicine and baylor college of medicine; courtenay bruce and dr stephen jones from the houston methodist institute for academic medicine; dr christopher frueh from the university of texas mcgovern school of medicine and the university of hawaii; and dr bita kash from the methodist institute for academic medicine and texas a&m this research is funded by the texas a&m university presidents excellence grant (x-grant)
researchers at texas a&m university and george mason university are investigating the utilization of population-level data in an effort to codify quarantine policies for policymakers this will ultimately alleviate the spread of diseases during epidemics and pandemics from multiple angles including mass screening quarantining and vaccine distribution dr hrayer aprahamian assistant professor and jiayi lin doctoral student in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m and dr hadi el-amine assistant professor of systems engineering and operations research at george mason university have identified quarantine policies using subject-risk information to mitigate the spread of disease while also recognizing the potential for the negative economic impact in order to identify the best possible policy we formulate this decision problem within an optimization framework and use a range of tools to be able to solve the resulting problem accurately and efficiently aprahamian said doing so enables us to solve the problem for realistic problem instances their research aims to not only provide practitioners administrators and policymakers with evidence-based insights and recommendations on mitigating the spread of disease in pandemics but to also demonstrate that operations research and mathematical tools can be used to successfully divulge more optimized mitigation policies to effectively combat the spread of diseases this paper provides an efficient solution scheme to a class of challenging optimization problems that arise in numerous real-world applications like crew scheduling vehicle routing inventory management group testing and bin packing lin said from a practical standpoint this paper addresses an important question that many practitioners have continued to struggle with how can one use the vast amount of covid-19 data to shape informed data-driven policies the researchers attempt to answer this question by providing a mathematical framework to identify quarantine policies that are effective in mitigating the spread of disease while considering both subject-specific risk information and overall economic impact this distinction arises from the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all policy the team conducted a covid-19 case study using real-world risk data for the state of minnesota which was achieved by simulating a realistic community based on census data and then ran an optimization model on this particular community the resulting models were solved using texas a&ms high performance research computing facilities to achieve comprehensive results the experiment was repeated for a range of realistic parameter values to measure the benefits of the proposed policies the team compared their solution to more conventional one-dimensional policies targeted policies tailored to the specific needs of the local population are recommended such specific solutions however are often complex and require us to work closely with local leaders in order to successfully implement them aprahamian said this research demonstrates that the identified data-driven policies outperform conventional measures by both reducing the spread of the disease and having less economic impact one observation that is worth highlighting is that the results reveal that taking no action at all is never the best solution for a wide range of realistic parameter values even in the most extreme of cases lin said these results when scaled translate to hundreds of thousands of fewer infections and millions of dollars of savings aprahamian said such high-level insights are of great value as they can be used by larger national or worldwide agencies to urge local administrators to take action especially at the early stages of the pandemic
having a home near a busy airport certainly has its perks it is close to many establishments and alleviates the problem of wading through endless traffic to catch flights but it does come at a cost tolerating the jarring sounds of commercial airplanes during landing and takeoff researchers at texas a&m university have conducted a computational study that validates using a shape-memory alloy to reduce the unpleasant plane noise produced during landing they noted that these materials could be inserted as passive seamless fillers within airplane wings that automatically deploy themselves into the perfect position during descent when landing aircraft engines are throttled way back and so they are very quiet any other source of noise like that from the wings becomes quite noticeable to the people on the ground said dr darren hartl assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering we want to create structures that will not change anything about the flight characteristics of the plane and yet dramatically reduce the noise problem the researchers have described their findings in the journal of aircraft aircraft noise has been an ongoing public health issue airplanes can generate up to 75-80 decibels during landing which can be damaging to hearing over the long term for example studies have shown that people exposed to sustained aircraft noise can experience disturbed sleep and an increased risk of stroke and heart disease compared to those who do not live near airports the source of aircraft noise is different during ascent and descent during takeoff the engines are the primary source of noise on the other hand when airplanes slow down to land the engines do not need to generate power and are mostly idling at this time the wings begin to reconfigure themselves to slow down the airplane and prepare for touchdown similar to the opening of venetian blinds the front edge of the wing separates from the main body this change causes air to rush into the space created circle around quite violently and produce noise the idea is similar to how a sound is generated in a flute said hartl when a flute is played air blown over a hole begins to swirl around the hole and the size the length and how i cover the holes produces a resonant sound of a certain frequency similarly the circulating air in the cove created between the front edge of the wing and the main wing resonates and creates a sharp unpleasant noise earlier work from hartls collaborators at nasa showed that fillers used as a membrane in the shape of an elongated s within this cove could circumvent the noise-causing air circulation and thereby lessen the jarring sound however a systematic analysis of candidate materials that can assume the desired s-shaped geometry during descent and then recess back into the front edge of the wing after landing was lacking to address this gap the researchers performed comprehensive simulations to investigate if a membrane made of a shape-memory alloy could go back and forth changing shape for every landing their analysis considered the geometry the elastic properties of the shape-memory alloy and the aerodynamic flow of air around the material during descent as a comparison the researchers also modeled the motion of a membrane made of a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer composite under the same airflow conditions hartl said these types of simulations are computationally expensive since the flow of air around the conformal material has to be modeled while analyzing the air-induced motion of the material every time the air applies some pressure to the material the material moves and every time the material moves the air moves differently around it he said so the behavior of the airflow changes the structure and the motion of the structural changes the airflow consequently the team had to perform calculations hundreds to thousands of times before the motion of the materials was correctly simulated when they analyzed the outcomes of their simulations they found that both the shape-memory alloy and the composite could change their shape to reduce air circulation and thereby reduce noise however the researchers also found that the composite had a very narrow window of designs that would enable noise canceling as a next step hartl and his team plan to validate the results of their simulations with experiments in these tests the researchers will place scaled-down models of aircraft wings with the shape-memory alloy fillers into wind tunnels the goal is to check if the fillers can deploy into the correct shape and reduce noise in near real-world situations we would also like to do better said hartl we might be able to create smaller structures that can reduce noise and do not require the s-shape which are actually quite large and potentially heavy other contributors to this research include dr gaetano arena dr rainer groh and dr alberto pirrer from the university of bristol england; dr travis turner from the nasa langley research center virginia; and william scholten now at ata engineering inc this research is funded by the engineering and physical sciences research council the royal academy of engineering and the nasa langley research center
"finding new solutions to address the challenges posed by plastic waste can dramatically improve global sustainability practices and help achieve a greener future while many researchers are working to solve this problem on an international scale a new multi-institutional team is seeking to turn that waste into a high-performing contributor the research team is working on upcycling plastic waste into liquid lubricants including oil hydraulic fluids heat transfer fluids and greases led by iowa state university the project team includes argonne national laboratory chevron philips chemical company chemstations inc american packaging corp the city of ames resource recovery facility and hy-vee alongside texas a&m university dr ali erdemir halliburton chair in engineering professor and professor in the j mike walker' 66 department of mechanical engineering and the department of materials science and engineering leads the efforts for texas a&m the project is one of 12 funded by the us department of energys plastics innovation challenge an initiative designed to reduce plastic waste in oceans and landfills as well as help to position the us as a global leader in plastics recycling technologies and in the manufacture of new plastics that are recyclable by design their research was recently published in the journal chemsuschem erdemir said the team is working toward the common goal of demonstrating that plastic wastes can be responsibly and economically upcycled into high-performance lubricants and used to minimize friction and wear if successful the team hopes their research could help reduce both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions ""this project aims to reduce the adverse impacts made by hundreds of millions of tons of waste plastics through upcycling in order to support a circular economy with minimal environmental impact "" erdemir said ""these responsibly recycled materials will provide new economic incentives by developing through a novel upcycling process to produce innovative value-added products"" erdemir said the general public could see day-to-day benefits from this research through a less adverse impact from plastic waste and cheaper and potentially better functioning lubricants used in cars and other industrial activities ""reducing plastic wastes to lubricating oils is quite remarkable and may lead to a greener and more sustainable future "" erdemir said ""benefits could be huge as the end-products of this project will not only help reduce the adverse environmental impacts of plastic wastes but also put them in use in a very green and continuously recyclable manner"" by turning the waste into high-performing lubricants that perform as well or even better than their traditional counterparts erdemir said the mechanical components that utilize the lubricants for smooth and safe operation could benefit through mechanical durability energy efficiency and environmental compatibility moving forward the team will be researching both the cost and technology needed to upcycle the plastic waste into lubricants as well as how well the product ultimately performs ""by the end of our project we hope that we turn plastic trash into lubricating treasures in a sound and cost-effective way thus helping alleviate the dire consequences of plastic wastes which are already hurting our planet in so many ways erdemir said if proven commercially viable we expect our research findings to turn into a wide range of lubricating products including engine oils and a wide range of industrial lubricants that could help reduce energy consumption and the carbon footprint of future transportation and other industrial systems"
by analyzing peoples visitation patterns to essential establishments like pharmacies religious centers and grocery stores during hurricane harvey researchers at texas a&m university have developed a framework to assess the recovery of communities after natural disasters in near real time they said the information gleaned from their analysis would help federal agencies allocate resources equitably among communities ailing from a disaster neighboring communities can be impacted very differently after a natural catastrophic event said dr ali mostafavi associate professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering and director of the urban resilienceai lab and so we need to identify which areas can recover faster than others and which areas are impacted more than others so that we can allocate more resources to areas that need them more the researchers have reported their findings in interface a publication of the royal society the metric that is conventionally used to quantify how communities bounce back from nature-caused setbacks is called resilience and is defined as the ability of a community to return to its pre-disaster state and so to measure resilience factors like the accessibility and distribution of resources connection between residents within a community and the level of community preparedness for an unforeseen disaster are critical the standard way of obtaining data needed to estimate resilience is through surveys the questions considered among many others are how and to what extent businesses or households were affected by the natural disaster and the stage of recovery however mostafavi said these survey-based methods although extremely useful take a long time to conduct with the results of the survey becoming available many months after the disaster for federal agencies allocating funds recovery information is actually needed in a faster and more near real-time fashion for communities that are trailing in the recovery process said mostafavi the solution we thought was to look for emerging sources of data other than surveys that could provide more granular insights into community recovery at a scale not previously investigated mostafavi and his collaborators turned to community-level big data particularly the information collected by companies that keep track of visits to locations within a perimeter from anonymized cell phone data in particular the researchers partnered with a company called safegraph to obtain location data for the people in harris county texas around the time of hurricane harvey as a first step they determined points of interest corresponding to the locations of establishments like hospitals gas stations and stores that might experience a change in visitor traffic due to the hurricane next the researchers mined the big data and obtained the number of visits to each point of interest before and during the hurricane for different communities in harris county they calculated the time taken for the visits to return to the pre-disaster level and the general resilience that is the combined resilience of each point of interest based on the percent change in the number of visits due to the hurricane their analysis revealed that communities that had low resilience also experienced more flooding however their results also showed that the level of impact did not necessarily correlate with recovery its intuitive to assume for example that businesses impacted more will have slower recovery which actually wasn't the case said mostafavi there were places where visits dropped significantly but they recovered fast but then others that were impacted less but took longer to recover which indicated the importance of both time and general resilience in evaluating a communitys recovery the researchers also noted that another important finding was that the areas that are in close proximity to those that had flooding are also impacted suggesting that the spatial reach of flooding goes beyond flooded areas although we focused on hurricane harvey for this study our framework is applicable for any other natural disaster as well said mostafavi but as a next step wed like to create an intelligent dashboard that would display the rate of recovery and impacts in different areas in near real time and also predict the likelihood of future access disruption and recovery patterns after a heavy downpour other contributors to the research include cristian podesta natalie coleman amir esmalian and dr faxi yuan from the civil and environmental engineering department podesta an undergraduate student is the lead author in this study coleman is a national science foundation graduate fellow this research is funded by a national science foundation faculty early career development award
with questions about the short- and long-term reliability and sustainability of the power grid set forth by the electric reliability council of texas more commonly referred to as ercot having alternate energy options is more vital than ever and while many forms of renewable energy such as solar and nuclear call land their home other methods such as offshore wind farms wave energy and current/tide energy are taking to the seas to generate electricity dr moo-hyun kim bauer professor ii in the department of ocean engineering and director of the ocean system simulation and control lab and his team of fellow researchers at texas a&m university believe the next generation of offshore energy lies in the development of a synergistic combination of several renewable energy production methods set atop a floating offshore platform offshore renewable energy can directly power remote islands numerous ocean platforms electric boats and underwater drones and vehicles as well as ‘blue economy systems such as marine aqua-culture fish or macro algae farms kim said it can also be combined with desalination plants and hydrogen factories the ocean renewable energy station will feature wind wave current and solar energy elements that could generate electricity for anything from a coastal or island community a research lab or a military unit tethered where the sea level is 60 meters or deeper the station will be ideal when water depth increases quickly such as along the united states pacific coast or hawaii and will be less obtrusive to the view of coastal residents than a fixed offshore wind farm and it has been proven to have a highly competitive levelized cost of energy (the measurement of lifetime costs divided by energy production) denmark is now building a huge multi-source multi-purpose ocean energy island; wind energy is already competitive against fossil fuels kim said the biggest disadvantage of ocean renewable energy is its variability so some sort of storage method is highly needed to be commercially more useful while offshore wind energy is commercially competitive current wave-energy converters (which sit close to the surface of the water and utilize the natural motion of waves to generate electricity) are less cost-effective and only useful for smaller-scale special purposes to help solve these problems the ocean renewable energy station combines several different methods of renewable energy additionally as kim described larger offshore wind turbines may create better synergy with the other forms of energy production the team also plans to incorporate innovative smart materials into the wave energy converter that will respond to changes in wave height and frequency and allow for more consistent power production now the united states department of energy is the largest funding source for ocean renewable energy and the wind energy industry is growing fast kim said major oil/gas companies are also gradually shifting their business emphasis toward ocean clean energy
"occurring faster than the speed of sound the mystery behind the breakdown of plasma discharges in water is one step closer to being understood as researchers pursue applying new diagnostic processes using state-of-the-art x-ray imaging to the challenging subject these diagnostic processes open the door to a better understanding of plasma physics which could lead to advances in green energy production through methods including fusion hydrocarbon reforming and hydrogen generation dr david staack and christopher campbell in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university are part of the team pioneering this approach to assessing plasma processes partners on the project include diagnostics experts from los alamos national laboratories and using the facilities at the argonne national laboratory advanced photon source (aps) the team is working with lteoil on patented research into the use of multiphase plasma in carbon-free fuel reforming the research is supported by the dynamic materials properties campaign (c2) and the advanced diagnostics campaign (c3) at los alamos national laboratories through the thermonuclear plasma physics group (p4) principal investigator zhehui (jeph) wang the research which was recently published in physical review research is producing the first-known ultrafast x-ray images of pulsed plasma initiation processes in water staack associate professor and sallie and don davis '61 career development professor said these new images provide valuable insight into how plasma behaves in liquid ""our lab is working with industry sponsors on patented research into the use of multiphase plasma in carbon-free fuel reforming "" staack said ""by understanding this plasma physics we are able to efficiently convert tar and recycled plastics into hydrogen and fuels for automobiles without any greenhouse gas emissions in the future these investigations may lead to improvements in inertial confinement fusion energy sources"" inertial confinement fusion in which high temperature high energy density plasmas are generated is a specific focus of the project to better understand the plasma physics involved in this type of fusion staack said the team is developing short timescale high-speed imaging and diagnostic techniques utilizing a simple low-cost plasma discharge system additionally they are seeking to better understand the phenomena that occur when plasma is discharged in liquid causing a rapid release of energy resulting in low-density microfractures in the water that move at over 20 times the speed of sound"
"campbell a graduate research assistant and phd candidate said the team hopes their discoveries can prove to be a valuable contribution to the collective knowledge of their field as researchers seek to develop robust predictive models for how plasma will react in liquid ""our goal is to experimentally probe the regions and timescales of interest surrounding this plasma using ultrafast x-ray and visible imaging techniques thereby contributing new data to the ongoing literature discussion in this area "" said campbell ""with a complete conceptual model we could more efficiently learn how to apply these plasmas in new ways and also improve existing applications"" although they have made progress campbell said current methods are not yet sophisticated enough to collect multiple images of a single plasma event in such a short amount of time less than 100 nanoseconds ""even with the state-of-the-art techniques and fast framerates available at the advanced photon source we have only been able to image a single frame during the entire event of interest by the next video frame most of the fastest plasma processes have concluded "" campbell said ""this work highlights several resourceful techniques we have developed to make the most of what few images we are able to take of these fastest processes"" the team is currently working to measure the pressures induced by the rapid phenomena and preparing for a second round of measurements at aps to investigate interacting discharges discharges in different fluids and processes that may limit confinement of higher energy discharges they look forward to the opportunity of using even higher-framerate x-ray imaging methods ranging up to 67 million frames per second compared to 271 thousand frames per second in this study"
dr isaac adjei is using his background in drug delivery to engineer new ways to treat late-stage cancer patients adjei assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university develops treatments for patients with late-stage cancers to improve their quality of life and help them live longer typically these patients have cancer that has spread to other parts of the body or tumors that do not respond to treatment one of the current treatments for most cancer patients is immunotherapy where antibodies are used against specific receptors on cancer cells to activate the immune system or immune cells are isolated activated and then re-injected into the body to attack the cancer however immunotherapy is less likely to work on patients with late-stage cancer in breast cancer patients only about 5% in the advanced stage will respond to treatment adjeis group takes a different approach to how the immune system interacts with tumors instead of only testing different immunotherapies his team looks to see if they can develop ways to change the environment inside a patients tumor to give the treatment a better chance of working were trying to change the environment within the tumor using nanoparticles that we developed in our lab so that when the new immune cells get there the cells are happy and they can find the cancer cells and kill them adjei said were giving them a fighting chance to be able to do the job you send them there to do one way adjeis team is hoping to accomplish this is by changing the oxygen levels within the tumor as cancer grows it uses a lot of nutrients lowering the amount of oxygen within the tumor once the environment is depleted of nutrients the tumor is prompted to leave which leads to the cancer spreading throughout the body through metastasis the cancer cells also develop ways that allow them to hide from the immune cells in this hypoxic environment making immunotherapy ineffective
if nanoparticles tiny devices 1 000 times smaller than a strand of human hair can be injected into the tumor and produce oxygen the immune system will have a better chance at destroying the tumor adjeis team develops nanoparticles that take advantage of some of the properties of the tumor cells to produce oxygen in that environment to ensure a sustained effect adjei says one goal is to find ways to mimic nature one of my philosophies is if you take something that nature is already using it makes it easy to translate adjei said i did some of my phd coursework in a hospital so there its put into your head before you develop or design anything you have to think about how youre going to ultimately get it into a patient that leads to another challenge his team is working to solve ensuring nanoparticles end up in the right place in the body once again they are using the bodys own systems as a template the liver for instance produces many substances but the body knows where each should go usually using specific proteins what (my graduate student) sri is doing is shes developing these nanoparticles that if you inject them into the body they can recruit some of these proteins and then use that to tell the nanoparticles where to go adjei said once we have this platform we can apply it for different applications such as treatment of cancer stroke even traumatic brain injuries adjei said one of his goals is to train students with the right skills and mentality to help patients which can have a broader impact on the health of the community if i train two doctoral students who have the same mentality and they go out with the goal to improve outcomes for patients thats three people trying to do the same thing adjei said that is my ultimate goal: help patients and train excellent translation-minded students who when they go out even if they are in industry are going to make impacts
the pfizer and moderna covid-19 vaccines have proven to be incredibly effective at fighting the pandemic both of these vaccines are made using messenger rna (mrna) the genetic material that contains instructions for cells to build antigen proteins these mrna vaccines represent a fundamentally different approach to traditional vaccines essentially all vaccines are used to stimulate and train the bodys immune system to recognize and destroy pathogens traditional vaccines contain either killed or weakened forms of a virus or bacterium or proteins associated with the pathogen to provoke an immune response rather than introducing a pathogen or associated protein directly mrna vaccines introduce genetic information that instructs cells to make proteins that are associated with the pathogens triggering an immune system response while mrna vaccines have several major advantages over traditional vaccines – precise immune responses rapid development and production processes inherent safety – there are a few significant drawbacks the most critical of these is the overall thermal instability of rna which begins to break down above freezing temperatures as a result mrna vaccines require stringent cold chain conditions for manufacturing storage and worldwide distribution (-20°c for moderna -80°c for pfizer-biontech vaccines) which has hindered the widespread utilization of them particularly in rural areas and developing countries that lack ultracold freezers and cold-chain assurance to make mrna vaccines much more broadly accessible it is critical to improve mrna vaccine stability while maintaining efficacy and safety a team lead by dr qing sun assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has been awarded a texas a&m university x-grant to examine and find solutions to the problems presented by mrna vaccines this team is composed of eight faculty members including sun dr arum han dr xiaoning qian and dr yang shen from the college of engineering; dr paul de figueiredo dr julian leibowitz and dr jim song from the texas a&m university school of medicine; and dr xiuren zhang from the texas a&m university college of agriculture and life sciences the overarching goal of the project titled a multidisciplinary platform to develop thermally stable and highly efficient mrna vaccines is to develop an integrated platform that includes high throughput deep learning and novel experimental systems that predict and produce thermally stable mrna vaccines the x-grant team will develop a machine-learning platform that utilizes deep learning to predict the thermal stabilities of various rna from sequence information the team will then develop a dna/rna synthesis platform that supports the prototyping of mrna vaccines and tests the immunogenicity/efficacy of each of the prototype vaccines the research will initially focus on covid-19 but the goal is to make the platform flexible enough to expand into other infectious agents cancers and other significant human diseases x-grants part of the presidents excellence fund at texas a&m university is an interdisciplinary program designed to bring faculty together across disciplines the programs goal is to unlock creative and imaginative ideas that will address important problems in areas that will significantly impact the most important challenges facing global society for round four of the x-grants program there were more than 200 proposals submitted to the program and eight were finally funded
"can we develop models of the cognitive behavior of human-machine collaboration while this might seem like the stuff of science fiction researchers at texas a&m university are currently developing algorithms that interpret situations close to how humans navigate through their daily lives for example say you see something that resembles a rock in the road -- do you keep driving or swerve to avoid it the split-second choice may seem obvious but it is dependent on many factors that can range from whether it is rock or a stray turtle how big the rock is and if there are cars in the lane next to you although human decision-making relies on many variables these decisions are made in a split second among various other possible scenarios ""humans pay attention to context; that's part of our intuition "" said dr mark balas leland jordan professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university ""if you're on a high-speed highway and traffic is bunching ahead of you a machine can slow your car down or speed up but it's not doing anything intelligent however the human operator might make a different decision based on what they can see and their motives"" the researchers said this intuition might resemble how events in the atomic and subatomic realms occur a process mathematically described by quantum mechanics unlike other mathematical abstractions of decision-making that consider past events to decide the probability of a future outcome quantum mechanical probabilities are based on multiple possibilities that are ever-changing and present simultaneously at the moment of action when a decision is made all of these fluctuating probabilities converge to a single value called a quantum collapse this type of math is used to describe the behavior of electrons photons and other subatomic particles the researchers argued that this math can also be applied to human decision-making as well ""at any given moment humans experience many emotions simultaneously "" said dr james hubbard oscar wyatt professor in the department of mechanical engineering ""but if asked what they are feeling right now they will generally state one emotion out of multiple possibilities you could think of it as a quantum collapse into one emotional state based on this rationale the researchers are investigating if they can create an algorithm for semi-autonomous vehicles that would model how well-trained operators would make decisions in conjunction with these vehicles we want to use quantum probability-based algorithms to address bigger issues like the decisions needed when other drivers make unexpected moves said balas in other words wed like our algorithms to mimic what experienced operators would decide to do in these instances and we think that that might be a novel way to approach the future of human collaboration with autonomous vehicles hubbard and balas are the co-investigators on this project they host a weekly quantum cognition research seminar with their team that they refer to as the center for the hopelessly naïve to discuss their ideas on quantifying and understanding the human decision-making process"
"commonplace pharmaceuticals such as ibuprofen can carry with them an inherent flaw in their atomic structure which pairs the active beneficial ingredient with a potentially ineffective or even toxic counterpart new research could hold the key to more easily isolating the good while removing the unwanted dr shoufeng lan assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is leading a team investigating the use of electromagnetic control over the synthesis of chiral compounds at an atomic level a process that could lead to a plethora of practical applications including in the pharmaceutical industry the team's research was recently published in the journal nature communications ""mysteriously all living organisms on the earth consist of only left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars but not their mirrored counterparts "" lan said ""the phenomenon is the so-called homochirality of life and it is the ultimate form of asymmetric synthesis"" lan used the example of a human hand to demonstrate the concept of chirality noting that if you were to create a mirror image of your hand it could not be perfectly superimposed over the original by identifying a successful method of using asymmetrical synthesis to create new versions of structures for items like ibuprofen lan said better versions of generic pharmaceuticals with reduced toxicity could be created at a lower cost than currently available due to the current purification process however to achieve success the researchers will first need to overcome the practical need to implement this magnetic effect on asymmetric synthesis at room temperature currently this effect is relatively weak even with a strong magnetic field or at a low temperature or 450 degrees lan said the topic of addressing chirality was the basis of the 2001 nobel prize in chemistry which uses an existing chiral object a catalyst molecule to transfer chirality to the desired mirror image form as the final product ""this nature communications paper demonstrated a giant atomic-scale magneto-chiral effect that is orders of magnitude stronger "" lan said ""by applying this effect it is arguably possible to master an asymmetric synthesis or asymmetric self-assembling"" lan said his team's research could prove revolutionary to the field by creating a new iteration of biomedical chemical and pharmaceutical applications for example by asymmetrically synthesizing only the active component of racemic lexapro the most common medication in the united states with more than 25 million prescriptions the research might reduce the drugs side effects 'we anticipate that our demonstration could lead to the creation of chiral seeds at the atomic scale "" lan said ""upon them we hope to transfer the chirality using cutting-edge technologies such as a metal-organic framework to create chiral materials from nanoscales to macroscales"""
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) recently received a proposed five-year up to $24-million contract from the army research laboratory (arl) to conduct basic research in establishing a collaborative distributed proving ground that will support autonomous vehicle research across various environments and domains at the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) on the texas a&m university system rellis campus the research will be focused on developing virtual proving grounds designed to enable researchers to develop test and demonstrate artificial intelligence (ai) and machine-learning (ml) algorithms for autonomous vehicles visual thermal lidar and radar datasets in relevant and diverse environments will also be collected annotated and curated in both real and virtual environments that can be used to evaluate ai/ml and autonomy algorithms in real and synthetic environments the distributed autonomous robotic experiments and simulations (dares) research project will be conducted in coordination and collaboration with arl researchers at the robotics research collaboration campus (r2c2) in graces quarters at the aberdeen proving ground in maryland the distributed autonomous robotic experiments and simulations cooperative agreement between arl and the texas a&m system will foster the acceleration of fundamental research in autonomy artificial intelligence and machine learning to transform the future of human-agent teaming said arl program manager andrew ladas we are excited to partner with the texas a&m system and utilize their state-of-the-art campus in addition to the labs facilities and assets to take this research to the next level and have them involved in the arl distributed virtual proving ground we look forward to the partnership and enhancing the capabilities of our soldiers in the future operational environment dr srikanth saripalli lead principal investigator for dares at texas a&m said the ability to connect r2c2 with starlab at the rellis campus through the dares program enables us to rapidly test and validate autonomous vehicle capabilities at multiple locations simultaneously which will accelerate the ability to incorporate research results into synthetic environments this will improve the quality of virtual simulations and ultimately increase resilience in autonomous vehicle capabilities saripalli is a professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university and his dares research team consists of 20 faculty members from mechanical electrical aerospace and computer science dr james hubbard jr oscar s wyatt jr 45 chair i professor and founder of the starlab in the mechanical engineering department provided the vision for the dares project dares will enable the establishment of a virtual proving ground on the rellis campus and is bolstered by a world-class team of experienced researchers this is indeed an exciting and unique opportunity for texas a&m to deliver a high-value asset to the army and its stakeholders said hubbard hubbard was a fellow of the hagler institute for advanced study at texas a&m and was brought to the university in 2018 through the governors university research initiative and the texas a&m university system chancellors research initiative the combination of the governors university research initiative alongside the chancellors research initiative serves as tremendous tools that place the texas a&m university system at a distinct advantage in identifying recruiting selecting and hiring the best of the best faculty and researchers to solve critical problems for our state and nation said texas a&m system chancellor john sharp were honored to have guri/cri faculty members like dr hubbard on our team to help solve military modernization challenges research in the later years of this proposal will occur on the innovation proving ground (ipg) at the bcdc the ipg will provide full instrumentation and 5g capabilities along with the personnel and systems that will prove crucial in capturing and providing necessary data to support the dares project this is a clear case where the combined vision of our faculty the aggie values of service to our nation and the facilities and expertise provided by the bcdc and the state of texas combined to produce this valuable research partnership with the army research lab said ross t guieb bcdc director we appreciate the opportunity to continue serving our current and future soldiers he said as the texas a&m system is becoming nationally recognized in leading academia-military modernization efforts us senator john cornyn (r-tx) said our countrys military readiness depends on innovation and the army research lab is on the front line of that fight this partnership with the texas a&m system will ensure we have the best and the brightest working to address rapidly evolving threats and maintain our strategic advantage around the world
as the global energy demand continues to grow along with atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (co2) there has been a major push to adopt more sustainable and more carbon-neutral energy sources solar/wind power and co2 capture – the process of capturing waste co2 so it is not introduced into the atmosphere – are two promising pathways for decarbonization but both have significant drawbacks solar and wind power are intermittent and cannot be deployed everywhere; co2 capture processes are incredibly energy-intensive both of these pathways have benefits but each on their own does not present a viable strategy at the moment however a research team led by dr faruque hasan kim tompkins mcdivitt 88 and phillip mcdivitt 87 faculty fellow and associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has uncovered a way to combine both of these processes together to increase the efficiency of both much of hasans research deals with synergy and synergistic effects in complex systems synergy is the combined effect of cooperative interactions between two or more organizations substances or other agents that is greater than the sum of their separate effects to this end hasan examined the synergistic integration of renewables and flexible carbon capture with individual fossil power plants we are addressing three things that each have pros and cons: fossil fuels are cheap but they release a lot of co2; co2 capture is very beneficial for the environment but it is prohibitively expensive; renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power are good for the environment but the energy output is intermittent and variable hasan said while each area presents significant challenges individually hasan and his research team have found a significant benefit when all the components are used in tandem in a research paper published in energy & environmental science hasan and his doctoral students manali zantye and akhil arora examined the use of synergistic integration of renewables and flexible carbon capture and found a significant benefit to efficiency and cost reduction despite the growing interest in sustainable renewable energy sources their intermittent availability would make it difficult to completely replace the dispatchable fossil-based energy generators in the near future said zantye who is the first author of the paper co2 capture is an energy-intensive process normally this process runs alongside standard energy generation at power plants as energy is generally priced on a demand basis the use of co2 capture processes during peak energy demand can quickly drive up operational costs to an unsustainable level in this research hasan also found that utilizing a flexible co2 capture system can greatly offset operational costs normally co2 is captured into a large solvent tank and then removed in an energy-intensive process in a flexible system rather than removing the co2 as it is introduced to the solvent it can be stored for short periods of time and removed at non-peak times when the cost of power is lower further by incorporating a renewable energy source the cost of co2 capture is offset even more according to hasan the synergistic framework presented in the research can dramatically improve the system beyond the component parts we have developed a computational framework to utilize dynamic operational schedules to manage all these very complex decisions he said developing carbon capture technology is very important but equally important is how you integrate them the operational aspect of integration is very important our study shows that this can be done in such a way that renewables fossil fuels and carbon capture are all working together according to zantye the proposed framework provides an effective decarbonization mechanism for the current fossil-dominated energy landscape as we transition to a more fully sustainable future this research is partly supported by the department of energy
our bodies are home to several bacterial species that help us maintain our health and wellbeing thus engineering these good bacteria to alter the activity of genes gone awry either by turning them down or by activating them is a promising approach to improve health and combat diseases in a study published in the journal nature communications researchers at texas a&m university have developed a sophisticated programmable gene silencing system that might have future therapeutic implications using chemical triggers the researchers showed that lab-engineered bacteria escherichia coli (e coli) could be induced to make gene products to suppress certain traits in caenorhabditis elegans (c elegans) a roundworm that consumes this strain of bacteria as food similarly the researchers noted that in the future symbiotic bacteria within the human microbiome could be engineered to sense record and deliver therapeutics to improve health and wellbeing the continued success of microbiome-based therapies depends on developing reliable vehicles to deliver therapeutic products said dr qing sun assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering here we have used bacteria to tweak the gene expression in another organism which is a proof of concept that bacteria living in symbiosis with humans could be engineered to modulate human physiology and treat disease in addition to the genes that are tightly bundled up into chromosomes bacteria and certain other microbes have other shorter circular strands of dna called plasmids not only can plasmids replicate they also have much fewer genes than their chromosomal counterparts these properties make plasmids easier to manipulate with genetic tools in particular segments of dna from other organisms known as transgenes can be inserted into bacterial plasmids further as plasmids replicate multiple copies of the transgenes are produced for example if the human gene for making insulin is inserted into a plasmid then as the bacteria replicate more copies of the plasmids and consequently insulin genes are made and so when these genes are expressed more insulin is produced alternately plasmids can be extracted from the bacteria and used as vehicles to insert transgenes into the genome of other cells to alter traits in those cells the researchers noted that while these types of genetic manipulations have been routine in mammalian cells and other simple microbes they have often been difficult to orchestrate in more complex multicellular organisms to overcome these hurdles sun and her team selected a bacteria-host pair that have a symbiotic relationship in particular they chose the soil-dwelling worm c elegans that feeds on e coli first they inserted a transgene into e colis plasmid that can interfere with a genetically engineered strain of c elegans which has the ability to glow fluorescently green then using a chemical they induced the plasmid to express the green fluorescence-suppressing gene last they fed the bacteria to c elegans and found that only those c elegans that consumed the e coli with the transgene stopped glowing green in addition sun and her team programmed e coli to produce gene products with different and and or logic gates put simply gene products could be selectively produced only by the combined action of two or more genes like the mathematical and operation or if any one gene was expressed like the mathematical or operation once again using chemical triggers the researchers initiated an and or or combination of gene expression in the e coli needed to silence twitching behavior in c elegans after the worms fed on the bacteria sun said that their bacteria-based gene silencing system could be easily extended to other living systems for applications in pest control plant growth promotion and veterinary disease diagnosis bacteria have a symbiotic relationship with many species affecting their hosts metabolism immunity and behavior said sun here we have taken advantage of the symbiosis between bacteria and a relatively complex organism to engineer a programmable genetic tool that can influence host physiology in a positive way baizhen gao from the chemical engineering department is the lead author of this study this work is supported by texas a&m engineering experiment station and chemical engineering department start-up funds
with the support of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) office of commercialization and entrepreneurship texas a&m university researcher dr choongho yu professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and entrepreneurial partner ranga vasudevan have successfully launched a lithium-based battery technology startup called flexodes high-energy density and low cost are the two most important aspects currently lacking in lithium battery-operated devices the present-day electric vehicle batteries we hope to fill that technological need said yu further recognizing the merit of commercializing the innovation in high-performance lithium batteries the startup has received a highly competitive small business innovation research grant from air force in the short term our focus is on refining and improving the technology for use in mobile devices in the private and defense sectors while we continue down our path to being a premier technology for electric vehicles and other markets said vasudevan having said that flexodes is entirely focused on furthering battery technology beyond lithium-ion to the next generation the basis of the commercial venture is research from yus laboratory on lithium-sulfur batteries in particular yus team has patented the design of a 3d trench-wall carbon nanotube framework for the batterys electrodes these high-performing electrodes dramatically increase the batterys ability to store charge they also discharge very easily generating large quantities of current to power up devices rapidly the experts also added that batteries built with their technology are more resistant to the formation of finger-like deposits called dendrites that cause most commercially available lithium-based batteries to overheat and rupture to bring the commercial enterprise into vision yu and vasudevan credit the guidance from the office of commercialization and entrepreneurships venture creation team which provides researchers relevant training on turning research discoveries into businesses and products through start-up formation and strategies to advance the commercialization the office also connects researchers to private sector entities to facilitate licensing and investment opportunities the true impact of the technology is only realized when it reaches the commercialization partner who is able to sell the product globally to the end customer said dr saurabh biswas executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship at tees our office provides support during the early stages of research and development to enable continued product development and commercialization he added that the commercialization and entrepreneurship office supports all innovators across texas a&m engineering through its three groups: licensing and intellectual property management venture creation and innovation programs and strategic projects the commercialization and entrepreneurship team also provides support across the total lifecycle of the innovation from its inception to intellectual property filing prosecution process licensing venture creation and finally working with external partners to enable commercialization of the technology
even the mundane act of swallowing requires a well-coordinated dance of more than 30 muscles of the mouth the loss of function of even one of these due to disease or injury can be extremely debilitating for these people nerve stimulation offers a ray of hope to regain some of their lost oral function in a new study researchers at texas a&m university have delineated the minimum size of electrical currents needed to provide sensation in different parts of the mouth the researchers said their study is a first but vital step toward building electrical stimulation implants that can restore essential intraoral functions that are lost due to nerve or brain damage the results of the study are published in the journal institute of electric and electronics engineers (ieee) transactions on biomedical engineering many essential bodily functions are coordinated by the nervous system via sensorimotor feedback loops as the name suggests these neural circuits involve the brain interpreting incoming signals from sensory nerves and then commanding the motor nerves to execute a certain movement so for example sensorimotor loops play a vital role in voluntary functions like walking or holding an object and involuntary movements like sneezing or blinking within the mouth also referred to as the intraoral cavity there is a rich supply of both sensory and motor nerves in particular sensorimotor nerves in the soft palate and tongue coordinate several intraoral movements related to swallowing speech and respiration and so damage to either the sensory or motor nerve fibers due to neurotrauma or disease can compromise these essential functions reducing the quality of life of those afflicted electrical nerve stimulation might help jumpstart the nerves into action much like how a pacemaker can electrically stimulate nerves in the heart causing the heart muscle to contract but unlike a pacemaker the details on the frequency and amplitude of the electrical currents needed for proper stimulation of different parts of the mouth have not been investigated electrical stimulation can modulate nerve currents or action potentials which are the mode of communication to and from the brain said dr hangue park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and so electrical stimulation should be carefully applied because if not then it might cause undesirable effects or it might not stimulate anything at all
to investigate the minimum stimulation currents needed park and his team inserted tiny metal electrodes into a standard dental retainer these electrodes were positioned in subjects to stimulate either their soft palate or the side and tip of the tongue which receive a rich supply of sensory nerves for each of these locations the researchers slowly changed the amplitude of the stimulation current keeping the frequency fixed then subjects were asked to report when they just began feeling a sensation and when the sensation was uncomfortable next they repeated the same experiment for a higher frequency of current after compiling their data the team determined the average perception and discomfort thresholds for the tongue and soft palate in addition they produced an equivalent circuit of the intraoral cavity to duplicate the electrical properties of that area this circuit the researchers said can help to further study the effects of electrical stimulation offline without requiring human subjects the researchers noted that their next steps would be to electrically stimulate the intraoral region and investigate how these simulations change chewing swallowing and other behaviors sensorimotor systems can be extremely vulnerable to damage due to neural defects aging and neurodegenerative diseases said park in this study we have begun to lay the groundwork for electrically stimulating parts of the mouth that control involuntary and voluntary movements our work is a seminal study and it is important so that we can in the near future help people that face enormous challenges doing everyday tasks that we take for granted other contributors to this study include beomhee park from the electrical and computer engineering department and dr saurabh biswas associate professor of practice from the department of biomedical engineering this research was funded by the institute for rehabilitation and research foundation
dr dinakar sagapuram from the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university and dr osman el-atwani and dr yongqiang wang from the materials science at radiation and dynamics extremes group at los alamos national laboratory (lanl) are using new metal manufacturing techniques to create stronger materials that have a higher capacity to withstand radiation from nuclear reactors most of the engineering metals used today are polycrystalline which means that they are made up of many individual crystals or grains packed together one type is nanocrystalline metals which have a grain size less than 100 nanometers and are exceptionally strong they recently became a focus of interest in the nuclear materials community after researchers found that these fine-grained metals have a high irradiation tolerance the downside of relying on nanocrystalline metals is the lack of suitable manufacturing processes that produce them in large volumes and thin sheet metal forms which is where many important applications lie rolling is a well-established method for manufacturing thin metal sheets the rolling process involves several steps in which the material is heated and manipulated during which the grain sizes increase as a result of these processes it is extremely difficult to refine the grain size to anything smaller than a micron during the rolling process the process the team has been developing focuses on producing thin metal sheets while maintaining a small grain size the process involves ‘peeling a thin continuous metal strip directly from a solid metal feedstock surface using a knife edge wherein we exploit the extreme plastic deformation and heat that is generated as part of the process to break down the grain size to sub-micron levels sagapuram said another unique feature of the process is that it can produce a sheet of metal in a single step the resulting sheet comes in forms and sizes that are easy to use for a variety of structural applications this particular collaboration is significant because it demonstrates a strong application for a new technology in terms of end users we have been so far thinking about primarily the automotive and electric power industries where a strong need exists for high-strength sheet materials sagapuram said but during our discussions with lanl it has become clear that they also have a great potential to improve the performance of nuclear reactors lanls expertise in irradiation materials science and irradiation capabilities and characterizations could help evaluate and expand potential applications of these materials in nuclear reactor environments wang said sagapuram said since there are several applications for this new manufacturing process it would positively affect the sheet metal manufacturing industry by providing a less energy-intensive more efficient process than rolling
dr shuiwang ji associate professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is one of the principal investigators on a $6 million grant from the national institutes of health (nih) to develop artificial intelligence-driven methods to automate the process of finding subtle telltale signs of alzheimers disease in neuroimaging data jis team shares $12 million of the grant ji will lead the research team tasked with developing advanced deep-learning methods for finding relevant neural signatures lurking within neuroimages taken using different techniques such as pet scans and mris i feel very excited with this collaborative opportunity to make scientific discoveries in medical domains using deep learning and artificial intelligence said ji who has extensive expertise in machine learning deep learning and medical image analysis alzheimer's disease affects 56 million americans over the age of 65 and its symptoms are most noticeably the progressive impairment of cognitive and memory functions it is also currently the most common form of dementia in the elderly despite copious amounts of studies on alzheimers over the years researchers understanding of the biology and progression of the disease remains limited so there are limited advances in therapeutics and preventive strategies ji said the research team expects to discover new genetic biomarkers relevant to alzheimers which may lead to understanding the molecular basis of the disease and in turn uncover a potential new treatment researchers will leverage existing neuroimaging and genetic data resources from the uk biobank the alzheimer's disease sequencing project the alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative and the cohorts for heart and aging research in genomic epidemiology consortium other collaborators on this research are dr degui zhi associate professor with the uthealth school of biomedical informatics and dr myriam fornage professor at the center for human genetics at uthealth
"dr karan watson regents professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2021 american society for engineering education (asee) lifetime achievement award in engineering education watson was recognized for her pioneering leadership and sustained contributions to education in the fields of engineering and engineering technology this prestigious award recognizes individuals with significant contributions in teaching education research administration or educational programs professional service or any combination thereof ""while i can mention many mentors who have helped me throughout my career and even more students who have taught me as much or more than i taught them i especially want to recognize carl erdman who introduced me to engineering education as an important research area for engineering thank you to all who were involved in the nomination and to all my colleagues at texas a&m university and around the world said watson in the past watson was the recipient of the following awards: institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) fellow asee fellow us presidents award for mentoring minorities and women in science and technology the american association for the advancement of science mentoring award ieee international undergraduate teaching award and the texas a&m university college of engineering crawford teaching award watson holds a phd from texas tech university her research interests include engineering education organizational change and computer systems dr tracy hammond director of the institute for engineering education and innovation says ‘karan watsons accomplishments in teaching and mentoring students and faculty her academic leadership professional service and her contributions to engineering education are outstanding she has served as a mentor to myself and countless others always driving us to become better educators and citizens of the world"
to develop novel protein carriers for cancer drugs texas a&m university researcher dr phanourios tamamis from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and his collaborator dr ehud gazit a leading biochemist biophysicist and nanotechnologist from tel aviv university israel have won a joint national science foundation and united states-israel binational science foundation (nsf-bsf) award the award conferred on june 15 will start funding their research on august 1 peptide-based materials are highly promising carrier agents for cancer drugs as they can combine ease of fabrication potential biocompatibility and tunable chemical properties the goal of this project is to develop novel classes of cancer drug delivery nanocarriers starting from promising initial studies of the researchers on peptide-based nanomaterials for the delivery of cancer drug epirubicin commonly used to treat breast cancer they will examine the possibility of using a short dipeptide cyclo-dihistidine as a universal cancer drug carrier they also plan on designing novel peptide nanocarriers combining enhanced fluorescence and high binding affinity to cancer drugs finally the team will aim to transform the most promising nanocarriers into smart drug nanocarriers capable of targeting cancer cells the resulting peptide materials are expected to be a viable alternative and promising route to delivering cancer drugs combining ease of fabrication with a range of capabilities including enhanced fluorescence to enable monitoring of drug release optimized drug encapsulation and improved targeting of cancer cells tamamis noted that this special nsf-bsf award will provide the exciting opportunity for him to merge his expertise in computational techniques with experimental techniques and studies that will be done in tel aviv by researchers from gazits lab the nsf-bsf grant will provide funding of around $400 000 to tamamis and additional funding to gazit in addition to providing funding for the research the grant will facilitate creating educational activities to train undergraduates graduate students and high school students from underrepresented communities
in the last few decades metal 3d printing has spearheaded the efforts in creating custom parts of intricate shapes and high functionality but as additive manufacturers have included more alloys for their 3d printing needs so have the challenges in creating uniform defect-free parts a new study by texas a&m university researchers has further refined the process of creating superior metal parts using laser powder bed fusion 3d printing techniques by using a combination of machine learning and single-track 3d printing experiments they have identified the favorable alloy chemistries and process parameters like laser speed and power needed to print parts with uniform properties at the microscale our original challenge was making sure there are no pores in the printed parts because that's the obvious killer for creating objects with enhanced mechanical properties said raiyan seede doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering but having addressed that challenge in our previous work in this study we take deep dives into fine-tuning the microstructure of alloys so that there is more control over the properties of the final printed object at a much finer scale than before the researchers have published their findings in the journal additive manufacturing like other 3d-printing methods laser powder bed fusion also builds 3d metal parts layer by layer the process starts with rolling a thin layer of metal powder on a base plate and then melting the powder with a laser beam along tracks that trace the cross-sectional design of the intended part then another layer of the powder is applied and the process is repeated gradually building the final part alloy metal powders used for additive manufacturing can be quite diverse containing a mixture of metals such as nickel aluminum and magnesium at different concentrations during printing these powders cool rapidly after being heated by a laser beam since the individual metals in the alloy powder have very different cooling properties and consequently solidify at different rates this mismatch can create a type of microscopic flaw called microsegregation when the alloy powder cools the individual metals can precipitate out said seede imagine pouring salt in water it dissolves right away when the amount of salt is small but as you pour more salt the excess salt particles that do not dissolve start precipitating out as crystals in essence thats what is happening in our metal alloys when they cool quickly after printing he said this defect appears as tiny pockets containing a slightly different concentration of the metal ingredients than other regions of the printed part these inconsistencies compromise the mechanical properties of the printed object
to rectify this microdefect the research team investigated the solidification of four alloys containing nickel and one other metal ingredient in particular for each of these alloys they studied the physical states or phases present at different temperatures for increasing concentrations of the other metal in the nickel-based alloy hence from detailed phase diagrams they could determine the chemical composition of the alloy that would lead to minimum microsegregation during additive manufacturing next they melted a single track of the alloy metal powder for different laser settings and determined the process parameters that would yield porosity-free parts then they combined the information gathered from the phase diagrams with that from the single-track experiments to get a consolidated view of the laser settings and nickel alloy compositions that would yield a porosity-free printed part without microsegregation last the researchers went a step further and trained machine-learning models to identify patterns in their single-track experiment data and phase diagrams to develop an equation for microsegregation applicable to any other alloy seede said the equation is designed to predict the extent of segregation given the solidification range material properties and laser power and speed our methodology eases the successful use of alloys of different compositions for additive manufacturing without the concern of introducing defects even at the microscale said dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and head of the materials science and engineering department this work will be of great benefit to the aerospace automotive and defense industries that are constantly looking for better ways to build custom metal parts research collaborators dr raymundo arroyavé and dr alaa elwany added that the uniqueness of their methodology is its simplicity which can easily be adapted by industries to build sturdy defect-free parts with an alloy of choice they noted that their approach contrasts prior efforts that have primarily relied on expensive time-consuming experiments for optimizing processing conditions arroyavé is a professor in the materials science and engineering departments and elwany is an associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering other contributors to this research include austin whitt and william trehern from the materials science and engineering department and jiahui ye from the industrial and systems engineering department the research is supported by the united states army research office and the national science foundation
"plastic is a part of modern life and has been integral to societal advancement still its use poses a global environmental hazard plastic waste especially mixed plastic waste is durable and ends up in landfills and the environment a texas a&m university and university of oklahoma team of researchers will establish an efficient plastic waste biodegradation strategy thanks to a $2 million grant from the national science foundation's emerging frontiers in research and innovation program according to the us environmental protection agency it is estimated that only about 9% of plastic waste generated in the country is recycled and the rest ends up in landfills incinerators or marine environments because of the time it takes for these plastics to break down the national oceanic and atmospheric administration estimates they will be there for 100 years or more ""the research objective is to develop technology and methods that can mitigate this problem specifically by decomposing plastic waste and then converting the degradation products into high-value products "" said dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and principal investigator on the project ""establishing an efficient plastic waste biodegradation strategy will be a game-changer in overcoming the mounting global environmental and health concerns"" the team will utilize microorganisms fungi and bacteria to essentially break down plastic components which could be used as source material for other material production ""our multidisciplinary team of investigators with expertise in microfluidics engineering synthetic biology and microbiology will work together to decipher how these microorganisms degrade plastic waste and use this information to engineer bacterial cells to improve degradation efficiency "" han said ""we will also utilize a mixture of different bacteria and fungi as a consortium to improve the plastic degradation efficiency mimicking how microbes work together in decomposing complex materials in nature"""
"there are many types of plastics but this research will focus on degrading the two most common plastics in packaging polystyrene used in disposable coffee cups and polyethylene commonly used in packaging films the team has already isolated several different bacteria and fungi that show promise in degrading these plastics in addition to han co-principal investigators are dr xuejun zhu and dr qing sun assistant professors in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m; dr won-bo shim professor and associate department head for academics in the department of plant pathology and microbiology at texas a&m; and dr aifen zhou research scientist at the institute for environmental genomics at the university of oklahoma han will utilize high-throughput microfluidic devices to screen millions of individual strains/variants from microbial libraries to identify the most efficient microbes in plastic degradation and reutilization zhu is an expert in synthetic biology natural product discovery and microbiome engineering who will work on plastic degradation product identification and enzyme discovery and use this knowledge to improve the efficiency of plastic-degrading enzymes through directed evolution sun is an expert in synthetic biology and microbiome engineering and will work on engineering bacteria and creating a bacterial community that can more efficiently degrade plastic waste shim an expert in fungal biology and genetics will study fungi that degrade plastic identify their mechanisms and the most effective strains and then create tailored synthetic fungal-bacteria consortia to improve the potential for plastic degradation zhou an expert in environmental microbiology and molecular biology has been working on isolating plastic-degrading microbial strains from mealworm gut microbiomes and naturally weathered plastic waste sample enrichments which is the source of bacteria and fungi that will be used in this project she will continue to work on isolating and identifying the most promising plastic-degrading microorganisms from the environment ""we will utilize multiple engineered microorganisms as a 'consortia' to degrade plastic waste so that we can deal with mixed plastic waste "" han said ""in parallel we will utilize the latest synthetic biology technique to engineer microbes so they can use the degradation product as a source to create high-value products"" the team will train next-generation researchers through exposure to multidisciplinary science and engineering at the high school and undergraduate levels as part of the grant the team will also create online learning modules presentations and social network materials to build partnerships between academia and the public to communicate and enhance the scientific awareness about the future of plastic waste and the potential for bioremediation"
when mother nature lashes out with high winds torrential rains and raging seas not all communities feel the impact the same urban areas with newer homes medical facilities and other infrastructure support may have higher chances of swift recovery compared to rural areas that do not have comparable access however cities are dependent on rural areas for their food water and energy needs thus the success of any post-disaster intervention depends on a clear understanding of how the interdependency between urban and rural areas poses additional challenges to timely socioeconomic and ecological recovery recognizing this challenge the national science foundation (nsf) has awarded a sustainable regional systems research networks (srs rn) planning grant to an international team of researchers led by dr debalina sengupta associate director of the gas and fuels research center in the texas a&m engineering experiment station the grant calls for an all-hands-on-deck convergent approach to solve societal challenges said sengupta being selected in the initial cohort of the recipients certainly establishes our collaborative teams capabilities in conducting sustainability research the planning grant will allow the research team to define research questions outcomes and come up with a roadmap to achieve goals through workshops webinars and stakeholder partnerships that potentially include members from municipalities federal governments educational institutions and ecological advocacy groups as a starting point they will study the impact of hurricanes on communities that are in close proximity to regions of high ecological value like river delta regions in particular the regional systems in consideration are disaster-prone areas within texas louisiana and mississippi and the sunderbans india next sengupta and her team will draft possible technological solutions to facilitate the recovery of these regions with strained interconnected food energy and water systems integrating the restoration and recovery of ecosystems and ecological processes into how regional systems both prepare for and respond to natural disasters is key to the mutual health of the natural world and the human communities that rely on it said seth blitch co-principal investigator on the planning grant and the director of coastal and marine conservation at the nature conservancy of louisiana although the planning grant will focus on sustainable solutions for hurricane-related disaster management and preparedness impacting different communities the work and the lessons learned are potentially applicable to other natural disasters including winter freeze earthquakes wildfires and floods our institute is supporting the development of modular process systems for flexible distributed production said dr william grieco co-principal investigator on the planning grant and chief executive officer at the rapid manufacturing institute we believe that these same platforms can be applied to disaster relief and resilience enhancement to ensure supplying food and clean water in the developed and developing world the researchers noted that although the award is a planning grant it recognizes highly competitive research at the nsf-systemwide level involving nine directorates including earth sciences mathematics cognitive sciences engineering and international science and engineering having witnessed katrina and its devastation firsthand back when i started graduate school finding resilient solutions has always driven me as an engineer said sengupta we are very grateful to receive this highly prestigious award that will help in establishing regional system networks that go from grassroots to global scales while connecting a diverse set of factors to enhance systems resilience as a whole the team has received nearly $150 000 in planning funds from the nsf which has prioritized convergence research that merges ideas approaches and technologies from diverse fields the grant is preparing for the submission of a well-developed srs rn proposal in a year as well as sparking ideas for other national and international priority programs related to the food energy-water nexus in the context of disaster resilience along with sengupta blitch and grieco the other co-investigators on the grant are dr lucy mar camacho from texas a&m university-kingsville dr carrlet beth stokes from mississippi state university and dr damien ejigiri from southern university collaborators on this project include national and international researchers from academia industry and research labs including dr anamitra anurag danda a world-renowned expert in the sunderbans region from the observer research foundation and world wildlife fund india sengupta serves in the role of water energy food nexus coordinator for the texas a&m energy institute at texas a&m her research is focused on sustainability in process systems engineering she has worked with the united states environmental protection agency and is the author of two books on engineering sustainability she has signed a memorandum of understanding with the bengal chamber of commerce & industry and regional stakeholders in india to work toward common goals of disaster resilience
in their roughly 35 billion years on earth bacteria have fine-tuned the art of colonizing all kinds of habitats from the inner lining of digestive tracts to the blistering hot waters of geysers but in their quest for world domination bacteria face a critical snag when moving across diverse environments preserving their navigational apparatus in a new study published in the journal nature communications researchers at texas a&m university have found that the appendages controlling bacterial navigation called the flagella adjust to changes in the viscosity of fluids very precisely this adaptation enables the bacterium to continue using its flagella for searching for nutrients sensing surfaces and establishing colonies in different habitats there is a significant interest in the biomedical fields to understand how individual bacterial cells transition from a lonesome existence to a community lifestyle said dr pushkar lele associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering to answer this question we are investigating the role of the flagellum as a response hub when a bacterium encounters different types of environments to navigate toward nutrients bacteria employ chemotaxis a process by which they sense chemicals and swim in the direction of increasing or decreasing concentrations the role of the flagellum in navigation is known it reversibly switches between clockwise and counterclockwise directions of rotation to facilitate chemotaxis flagellar rotation is powered by internal stator units similar in concept to the stator that rotates the rotor within an electric motor of a ceiling fan but more recent evidence suggests that the flagellum also plays a role in sensing changes in the cells mechanical environment a process called mechanosensing so if the bacterium encounters an increase in resistance to the rotation of its flagella it would be sensed as an increase in the viscosity of the environment in response the flagellar motor recruit extra stator units to compensate by developing more power however research has also shown that such an increase in the resistance prevents the flagellum from switching directions of rotation potentially rendering the chemotaxis machinery defunct
this observation posed a conundrum said lele chemotaxis is unlikely to be restricted to one type of viscous environment so we wondered if there were any adaptations happening within the flagellar motor that restored directional switching and by extension chemotaxis in varying viscous environments for their experiments the researchers chose a strain of e coli with a fluorescently-labeled chemotaxis protein chey-p that binds to the flagellar motor to initiate flagellar switching the researchers applied resistance to the motor and then observed the level of fluorescence using high-powered microscopes they found that the fluorescence dropped below baseline when they removed the stator proteins using genetic techniques in comparison the fluorescence level remained at the baseline when the stators continually delivered torque to rotate the motor this suggested that the presence of the stator units promoted chey-p binding to the motor based on these observations the team theorized that in high viscosity environments the increase in mechanical torque provided by the extra stator units increases the binding of chey-p to the motor thereby maintaining homeostasis in the switching function of the flagellum
lele pointed out this phenomenon of fine-tuning the internal state to adapt to changing mechanical loads bears a crude resemblance to proprioceptive adaptation whereby organisms with a nervous system continuously intuit their position and velocity to make adaptive changes to achieve homeostasis or a stable physiological state for example insects muscular skeletal systems internally adapt and adjust to varying loads on their limbs to maintain their posture and grip when walking on the floor or the ceiling homeostasis in flagellar switching appears to help motile bacteria form swarms and colonize different environments said lele explaining the basis for the observed link between mechanosensing and chemotaxis will be important in preventing bacterial colonization infections and antibiotic resistance in the future dr jyot antani is the lead author on the work and is former doctoral student from the chemical engineering department at texas a&m other contributors to this research include rachit gupta annie lee and kathy rhee from the chemical engineering department; and dr michael manson from the department of biology at texas a&m this research is funded by the us department of defense and the national institute of general medical sciences united states
a new startup company that could profoundly change the sterility testing techniques of vaccines and other biopharmaceutical products has been launched with the support of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) office of commercialization and entrepreneurship formed in collaboration with texas a&m universitys nanobio systems lab (led by drs arum han and paul de figueiredo) heliowave technologies llc is developing heliosafe a fast high-efficiency and automated sterility and bioburden testing system that uses lab-on-a-chip microfluidic-based approaches to detect contamination in therapeutics and therapeutic manufacturing workflows the project is led by dr adrian guzman chief technology officer and interim chief executive officer of heliowave and supported by han presidential impact fellow chancellors edges fellow and professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering and de figueiredo professor in the department of microbial pathogenesis and microbiology the team is using a lab-on-a-chip miniaturization technology to provide a small chip-scale footprint where the embedded microfluidics technology provides low-cost and rapid testing to identify the presence of any living microorganisms in the solution being tested this automated system ensures pharmaceuticals remain contamination-free and allows companies to identify and remove any contaminations in a timely and cost-efficient manner initial commercialization funds have been provided by the us department of defenses small business innovation research program conventional sterility and bioburden testing systems utilize milliliter volume samples and days/weeks-long assays to test for sterility of therapeutic products whereas heliowave's technology uses micro-to-pico-liter (1 000 to 1 000 000 times smaller) sample volumes and can be conducted in hours/days guzman said in addition there are currently no real-time monitoring systems for sterility and bioburden testing of the intermediate and final products which can lead to large batches of products being unknowingly contaminated during the biomanufacturing process therefore requiring disposal which can cost manufacturers greatly heliowave's technology also provides continuous monitoring that can be directly integrated in the therapeutic manufacturing workflow providing manufacturers an additional tool to ensure their current production batch is free of any biological contamination this significantly reduced testing time will allow potential sterility problems in the final product to be detected much faster as well as help identify problems in the therapeutic manufacturing workflow earlier to mitigate any problem han said the disposable lab-on-a-chip device can also significantly lower the cost of testing the researchers are currently in the prototyping characterization and validation stages of their lab-on-a-chip platform to ensure the system meets the required standards set by regulatory bodies they are hoping to soon move into the pilot testing stage to demonstrate the enhanced performance of their system compared to conventional sterility testing methods something they couldnt have easily accomplished without support from the tees office of commercialization and entrepreneurship most technology platforms emerging from academia face significant barriers when it comes to reaching the market said dr saurabh biswas executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship at tees deep-tech ideas require significantly longer development time because of the interdisciplinary nature of the research and also significant capital is required beyond the basic r&d our office provides support during the early stages of research and development to enable continued product development and commercialization the commercialization and entrepreneurship office supports texas a&m engineering through its three groups: licensing and intellectual property management venture creation and innovation programs and strategic projects they also provide support across the total life cycle of the innovation from its inception to intellectual property filing prosecution process licensing venture creation and finally working with external partners to enable commercialization of the technology (because of the tees office of commercialization and entrepreneurship) we are better positioned to bridge the gap from research and development to final production and mass fabrication of our chip for commercial use guzman said
"dr limei tian assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university recently received the trailblazer r21 award from the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering part of the national institutes of health to support her research developing biosensors tians current project focuses on developing biosensors to detect biomarkers for an acute kidney injury (aki) where the kidney suddenly stops working normally this would involve monitoring the concentration of proteins in urine while there are established protein biomarkers the challenge is continuously monitoring them detecting aki can be a time-sensitive process for determining proper treatment and protein concentrations can change rapidly meaning a continuous monitor would also benefit clinicians there are current procedures that can detect those proteins very accurately but every time the doctor orders these it's going to take several hours depending on whether the hospital has the capability of logging them tian said in most cases you have to send these samples to a central lab and it's going take several days to turn around results tian said the goal is to design a biosensor that could detect the concentration and provide an update every 30 minutes which could provide more timely clinical intervention on the patients behalf the biosensor would be small and ideally could easily be integrated into a catheter or implanted into the bladder in a minimally invasive process because the sensor would be designed in a soft electronic format tian said the applications for the biosensor extend outside of detecting aki one example would be analyzing protein levels in the fluid outside cells the interstitial fluid by monitoring concentrations and comparing them to protein levels in the blood researchers can better measure correlations between the two those are interesting clinical questions and with this tool we can answer those fundamental questions which can impact many other areas tian said thats what we are excited about we are developing an enabling technology not only for this project but its really a platform technology we're hoping not only revolutionizes disease diagnosis but in general health monitoring"" the trailblazer award supports high-impact projects with the potential to transform understanding or practice by applying an innovative approach to biomedical challenges the team was awarded $589 100 for use over three years the theme of our lab is developing novel biosensing platforms tian said this is a biosensing project and also it's funded by a very prestigious award that is very encouraging for a starting lab"
ceramics are resilient to heat and extreme environments but they are fragile and crack easily recently in a study published in science advances researchers at texas a&m university have discovered a self-healing mechanism within a type of ceramics called max phases they have shown that these engineered ceramics form natural faults or kink-bands during loading that can not only effectively stop cracks from growing but can also close and heal them thereby preventing catastrophic failure whats really exciting about max phases is that they readily form kink-bands under loading which can self-heal cracks even at room temperature making them suitable for a variety of advanced structural applications said dr ankit srivastava assistant professor in the department of materials science and engineering and a corresponding author on the study so far self-healing of cracks in ceramics has only been achieved at very high-temperatures by oxidation and that is why self-healing of cracks at room-temperature by kink-band formation is remarkable
this remarkable behavior of max phases can be traced back to their atomically layered structures imagine a plain loaf of bread it is homogeneous so if i slice it up each slice will look the same – similar in idea to conventional ceramics said dr miladin radovic a professor in the department of materials science and engineering and also a corresponding author on the study but max phases are layered like a peanut butter sandwich with peanut butter between two slices of bread the researchers then investigated if this unique layered structure of max phases make them any different from conventional ceramics for their experiments they used single crystal samples of chromium aluminum carbide max phase synthesized by dr thierry ouisse of université grenoble alpes france and a senior author on the study and loaded them inside an electron microscope using an in-house designed test fixture when the researchers viewed the deforming sample in the electron microscope while applying loading they observed that there were kink-band like defects that formed in the material resembling those formed in natural rocks more interestingly they discovered that the material within kink-bands rotate during loading which not only form barrier against crack propagation but also eventually close and heal the cracks as a consequence the sample was no longer vulnerable to catastrophic failure
whats really exciting is that this kinking or self-healing mechanism can occur over and over closing the newly formed cracks thus delaying the failure of the material said hemant rathod a doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering and the lead author on the studythe current discovery that materials resilient to heat and extreme environments such as max phases also self-heal cracks which may form during service can advance a host of next-generation technologies for instance efficient jet engines hypersonic flights and safer nuclear reactors the researchers also noted in the current study that the kink-band induced self-healing of cracks is most likely not unique to max phases and can be extended to other materials with similar atomically layered structuresthis study demonstrates the serendipity of the scientific process says siddiq qidwai a program director in the national science foundations directorate for engineering we have had self-healing soft materials and polymer composites and now remarkably ceramicsthis work is funded by the national science foundation
in the evolving field of cancer biology and treatment innovations in organ-on-a-chip microdevices allow researchers to discover more about the disease outside the human body these organs-on-chips serve as a model of the state an actual cancer patient is in thus allowing an opportunity to finding the correct treatment before administering it to the patient at texas a&m university researchers are pushing these devices to new levels that could change the way clinicians approach cancer treatment particularly ovarian cancer the team has recently submitted a patent disclosure with the texas a&m engineering experiment station we claim several novelties in technological design as well as biological capabilities that didnt exist in prior organs-on-chips said dr abhishek jain lead researcher and assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering jain also has a joint appointment in the college of medicine at texas a&m
jains device the ovarian tumor microenvironment-chip (otme-chip) focuses on platelets tiny blood cells that help the body form clots to stop bleeding the microdevice about the size of a usb models the properties of a tumor in the lab researchers then can recreate events within platelets circulating in the blood as they approach the tumor and make it more potent and metastatic we are creating a platform technology using the organ-on-a-chip approach where tumor biology can be advanced and new drugs can be identified by recreating the platelet-tumor and platelet-tumor-drug interactions under the influence of flow supporting blood vessels and the extracellular matrix jain said ovarian cancer is a particularly challenging one to monitor tumors generally form deep inside a patients tissue and it can be difficult to obtain real-time information of the tumors properties and how it is interacting with blood cells also ovarian tumors can quickly spread inside the body making time another vital factor in mapping the diseases progression the otme-chip builds on the current clinically observed understanding of how blood platelets move inside tumor tissue and what triggers them to spread outside the tumor however the actual mechanism behind this process remains mostly unknown until now for the first time we identified a crucial interaction between platelets and the tumor via their surface proteins jain said by applying high-resolution imaging advanced cell and molecular readouts and rna sequencing methods leveraging the otme-chip we discovered the actual genetic signaling pathways behind the blood cell triggered metastasis of ovarian cancer and a new drug strategy to stop this process jains team in college station for this research includes postdoctoral researcher dr biswajit saha and doctoral students jim tronolone and tanmay mathur their research involving the otme-chip was recently published in the journal science advances jain said the otme-chip has several applications both in observing how cancer cells interact differently with vascular and blood cells and testing novel ways to treat the disease that may complement chemotherapy and radiotherapy of tumors this multimodal otme-chip is going to provide an ideal platform to the health care researchers to evaluate their anti-cancer vascular and hematological drugs individually or in combination in an artificially created human-level tumor microenvironment jain said jain collaborates with dr anil sood professor and vice chair for translational research in the departments of gynecologic oncology and cancer biology at md anderson cancer center the team also works with dr gang bao a gene editing expert from rice university sood is a leader in the ovarian cancer field jain said he has been a fantastic collaborator and has provided us access to patient tissue and blood samples needed to validate the findings from our chip which brings us very close to initiating new clinical trials this research is funded through grants from the national institutes of health the national science foundation and the texas a&m presidents excellence fund
two faculty from the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university received awards from the human factors and ergonomics society (hfes) demonstrating their accomplishments in education practice and professional service in human factors engineering dr nancy currie-gregg was awarded the 2021 paul m fitts education award presented to an individual in recognition of their outstanding accomplishments in human factors engineering education and training dr farzan sasangohar was awarded the 2021 william c howell young investigator award recognizing his scientific contributions that demonstrate emerging influence in human factors and ergonomics currie-gregg professor of engineering practice in industrial and systems engineering and aerospace engineering has research interests that include aerospace human systems integration human-robot interaction and quantitative risk-analysis and systems safety engineering she received a bachelors in biological sciences from the ohio state university a masters in safety engineering from the university of southern california and a doctorate in industrial engineering at the university of houston i greatly appreciate this recognition from hfes it was a great honor reading the comments submitted by my former students currie-gregg said reading accounts of how their classroom experiences at texas a&m impacted their professional development as engineers is the greatest honor sasangohar assistant professor of industrial and systems engineering also received the 2021 bentzi karsh early-career service award presented to an individual for their outstanding contributions and professional service and outreach as an early-career professional in human factors and ergonomics this is the first time in hfes history that these two awards have been presented to one individual i am grateful and truly honored that both my scholarly work and service to profession have been recognized by my professional society sasangohar said winning these awards would not have been possible without the inspiration i have received from my advisors mentors students and colleagues his research interests include understanding and improving human decision making in safety-critical work environments using a wide range of analytical techniques and technological innovations including remote monitoring of health and performance sasangohar received a bachelors in information technology from york university a bachelors in computer science and masters in systems design engineering from the university of waterloo a masters in engineering systems from the massachusetts institute of technology and a doctorate in industrial engineering from the university of toronto
the threat of catastrophic wildfires has led california investor-owned utility pacific gas and electric company (pg&e) to significantly expand its use of a fire prevention tool developed at texas a&m university the tool is called distribution fault anticipation (dfa) its a unique hardware and software system that detects circuit anomalies notifying utility operators to address issues before they cause power outages or spark fires two veteran pg&e engineers eric schoenman and john mead highlighted the utilitys growing use of dfa in an article last month titled new tools in the fight to reduce wildfire ignition it was published in t&d world a leading utility industry magazine in 2019 pg&e installed dfa on seven circuits to evaluate its effectiveness based on the results the utility is adding dfa to 50 circuits in 2021 and anticipates adding 600 circuits over the next three years priority will be given to circuits in the areas most vulnerable to wildfires nearly one-third of pg&e electric lines are in state-designated high fire-threat zones dfa detects low-current events that conventional systems do not detect schoenman and mead wrote the fundamental key to addressing these phenomena is knowledge that they are occurring knowledge that dfa can in many cases provide a texas a&m team of engineers that developed dfa is led by distinguished professor dr b don russell and research professor carl l benner both in texas a&ms department of electrical and computer engineering
the team has worked closely with pg&e engineers on integrating dfa with the utilitys other equipment including other types of risk-reduction tools were proud to make a positive difference in a region of the country so vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires russell said the expansion at pg&e is the latest example of utilities turning to dfa the system is also being used by southern california edison in california and a number of utilities in texas georgia indiana oregon tennessee virginia the united kingdom australia and new zealand mid-south synergy electric co-op in texas which operates in small towns and rural areas southeast of college station is placing dfa on all of its circuits its a great system general manager kerry kelton said we have miles and miles of exposed feeder lines across pastures that are not easy to inspect directly dfa gives us the intelligence we need to prevent many outages it can help us every day electrical power outages commonly are caused by falling tree branches errant animals or failures of devices such as clamps switches conductors and connectors the conditions can build up over weeks or months impacting electrical currents in small ways before actual failures dfa monitors currents and applies algorithms to detect and report abnormalities for investigation and repair until now utilities have had little choice but to wait and react to actual failures operators recognize that something better is needed given the growing threat of wildfires dfa gives operators real-time awareness of the health of their system benner said while nothing will ever prevent all outages dfa can increase reliability for a utilitys customers and reduce ignition risks
the texas a&m university system and two of its state engineering agencies the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and the texas a&m engineering extension service (teex) today announced a new initiative to invigorate an important rio grande valley industry sector advanced manufacturing with workforce development programs that will prepare people for high-need jobs the texas a&m rgv advanced manufacturing/training innovation now (train) program gathers community input creates collaborations and develops training courses that meet the needs of current and future employers at the port of brownsville in two years train will award 10 000 certificates through online and on-site classes tees and teex two state agencies renowned for their workforce training and professional development will offer these courses in english and spanish there is no cost to participants thanks to $10 million in funding secured by state senator eddie lucio jr from the texas legislature i am proud to be part of this innovative initiative that will provide robust training opportunities to the people of south texas said john sharp chancellor of the texas a&m system with the new train initiative the texas a&m system continues its mission of education and service by partnering with our colleagues in the rio grande valley to provide no-cost training to community members interested in being part of the rapidly expanding advanced manufacturing workforce we owe a special thanks to senator eddie lucio and texas a&m system regent mike hernandez for helping make this possible tees and teex are uniquely positioned to offer expertise in workforce training in the much sought-after area of manufacturing said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor for engineering and interim director of tees by providing training to the people of the rio grande valley at no cost thanks to the texas legislature we have the opportunity to help people improve not only their employment options but also their lives courses will begin in october visit the train website for training and to learn more
"lithium-ion (li-ion) batteries commonly used in electric vehicles small appliances and electronic storage systems are rechargeable and energy-efficient as the demand for li-ion batteries escalates the elements needed to create them such as cobalt nickel and lithium are in short supply dr jodie lutkenhaus professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and dr daniel tabor assistant professor in the department of chemistry both at texas a&m university are using machine-learning techniques to optimize polymers needed for developing metal-free recyclable organic batteries the research is funded by the national science foundation (nsf) and in collaboration with dr juan de pablo and dr stuart rowan from the university of chicago with the approaching li-ion battery shortage metal-free batteries offer great potential in theory organic batteries could be locally sourced decreasing demands on supply chains they also provide the possibility of being environmentally benign ""most powerful li-ion batteries contain cobalt which only comes from a few places globally contributing to the global supply chain issue enhanced by the pandemic "" said lutkenhaus ""there's an effort by scientists to find alternative battery chemistries that are completely metal-free which means that in principle you could synthesize the materials for your batteries domestically"" although promising a substantial problem with metal-free polymer batteries is their lifespan they are also notoriously inefficient at storing energy since most polymers possess insulating qualities for this reason the researchers are targeting redox-active polymers capable of electron storage once stored they can release electrons comparable to how metal-containing batteries operate ""metal-free batteries are far away from practical commercial applications "" said lutkenhaus ""our work is going to discover new polymers that might enable these batteries for use in real-life applications specifically we are determining polymers that have improved voltage and stability translating into batteries that are more powerful and last longer"" polymers are chains of molecules linked together each molecule has a unique set of characteristics if there are 100 molecules with 100 different functions there are infinite ways to connect them producing slightly different polymers ""a polymer is like a chain of legos "" said tabor ""each different shape of lego has different properties but can also connect with numerous others let's say the goal of this specific chain of legos is to make a durable structure there may be several ways to make the chain but we would want to find the exact combination of legos that will provide the most durability similarly we are trying to find the exact polymer that produces the best battery"" in search of the most energy-efficient polymer the researchers will use bayesian frameworks to sift through thousands of combinations of molecules that can produce a polymer chain capable of energy storage in turn creating longer-lasting organic batteries ""we are using theoretical chemistry to predict the properties of materials in advance alleviating the need to test each combination in a laboratory "" said tabor ""this reduces the magnitude of options and provides fundamental insights that can improve performance it's deciding the best option based on all of the knowledge available"" the nsf grant will also help educate students on alternative chemistries and machine-learning technologies specifically it will help graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering ""we want to inform the next generation of students in this dynamic area "" said lutkenhaus ""with increased adoption of machine learning future professionals in these areas need to be well versed in data science and able to participate in computational and experimental science"
synthetic biology is an interdisciplinary field of study that applies engineering principles to biology and enables the engineering of microorganisms to have new functions and produce new materials through this researchers can solve real problems faced by society including those in the areas of medicine agriculture and national defense to name a few but this technique has only been applied to a very limited number of well-known laboratory microorganisms until now dr arum han presidential impact fellow and professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and dr jose wippold and dr bryn adams with the us army combat capabilities development command (devcom) army research laboratory (arl) collaborated to develop a device that accomplishes a task never done before the automation of dna transfer into a broad range of synthetic biology host cells or chassis using high-throughput microfluidics allowing for a large number of experiments to be conducted in a very short time their technology the dna enhanced transfer platform (dna entrap) is a microfluidic device that leverages a cell-to-cell dna transfer tool xport previously developed through a collaboration between the massachusetts institute of technology and arl texas a&m and arl then took the strategy and designed developed and tested a microfluidic device able to automate the steps needed to achieve xport dna transfer the device can enhance and screen for efficient dna transfer between cells ultimately making high-throughput genetic modification possible in a variety of organisms outside of the usual laboratory strains
han explained that harnessing the power of these diverse environmental microorganisms is of high interest to the military because they have so many different and unique functions that are currently untapped while these microorganisms are conventionally very difficult to engineer the entrap device provides the capability to readily engineer these natural microorganisms allowing synthetic biology techniques to be applied to the vast and diverse natural microorganisms enabling the agile development and manufacturing of new materials microbes in the environment are extremely diverse where we know less than 1% of these diverse microbes and thus provides a rich source of new functions and materials han said the collaborative project with the army research laboratory allows us to apply synthetic biology techniques to this extremely diverse environmental microbes opening up new ways of harnessing the power of microbes from nature dna entrap directly addresses the need for high-throughput reliable accurate and automatic systems that can be employed to streamline the labor-intensive and inefficient genetic modification processes into a rapid discovery engine the end result is a unique system that overcomes the time-consuming and labor-intensive process currently being used while also enabling multi-parameter adjustments and screening of cell-to-cell dna transfer conditions and their outcomes one of the enabling technologies to achieve high-throughput screening is microfluidics and its subset droplet microfluidics which enables researchers to study hundreds to thousands of experiments per second examined simultaneously through the use of microdroplets picture a bottle of oil and water that has been shaken up each droplet of water bouncing around in the oil would be a test event you can imagine the physical time it takes to do something on a benchtop in the lab with the movement of a hand is on the order of maybe 10 seconds per action with a lag time between each action wippold said the automated nature of microfluidics enables up to thousands of these actions per second the ability to massively scale up this process and allow us to do hundreds of thousands of different experiments in one run is just game-changing wippold said the droplet microfluidic system within the dna entrap device is composed of a series of separate but interconnected microfluidic liquid handling functions to accomplish this rapid direct cell to cell dna transfer further the number of each cell type (dna donor and receiver cells) within the droplet co-cultivation conditions and size of the droplet (thus the average distance between the cells) can all be controlled with high accuracy enabling the rapid identification of the conditions and/or cell strains that show the best dna transfer efficiencies wippold explained that the team expects the amount of time saved to be over 6 000-fold compared to a conventional assay and a corresponding reagent consumption saving of at least 100-fold for example testing a library of 1 million dna donor cells against a novel host cell (the cell receiving dna or other genetic material) under a single condition through conventional means will take an estimated 650 months wippold said in comparison running such a library through the invented droplet microfluidic platform will be accomplished within three days
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) announced the creation of the new center for advanced small modular and micro nuclear reactors (casmr) which will focus on enabling the worlds transition to clean energy while protecting the environment renowned nuclear engineering researcher dr yassin hassan will lead the center hassan is a member of the national academy of engineering a regents professor and the holder of the peterson chair in the texas a&m university college of engineering the massive winter storm that hit texas in february 2021 challenged the states energy infrastructure millions lost electricity and heat which left many in dire situations and without basic needs to help prevent a repeat of these scenarios casmr researchers will focus their efforts on developing and demonstrating technologies that deliver affordable reliable resilient secure flexible and sustainable energy with unparalleled safety and zero carbon emission for clean energy building upon tees already extensive capability in innovation the center supports work across the entire technology development spectrum from basic research to reactor design manufacturing and deployment said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor and dean of the college of engineering and interim director of tees tees is well positioned to conduct cutting-edge research that advances the design construction and operation of advanced nuclear reactors the center aims to hasten the development of new and transformative technologies materials and modeling and simulation that will make nuclear fission more affordable and then deploy it rapidly and securely small modular reactors and microreactors can provide electricity and heat as a source of energy under a wide variety of these unique and severe conditions small modular and microreactors provide a combination of benefits as being highly resilient carbon-free flexible and can produce electricity on demand and operate for years without the need to refuel microreactors and small nuclear reactors are ideal for use in remote areas and on microgrids the center will also bring a diverse group of domestic and international industry government agencies laboratories the public and key decision-makers and academia to collaborate on nuclear energy initiatives to rapidly bridge the gaps between basic research engineering development and commercialization
on july 2 a fluorescent vortex illuminated the waters surface was the gulf of mexico on fire as terrifying images that seemed to show an ocean engulfed in flames went viral many wondered how this could be possible at an offshore oil and gas rig a corroded pipe likely leaked causing gas to bubble to the surface and ignite the initial leak is cause for concern and the failure of underwater pipeline systems in offshore locations has been a topic of discussion among engineers for decades as an engineer we are focused on the corrosion and material failure of pipelines said dr saadat mirza professor of practice in the subsea engineering program through the department of multidisciplinary engineering at texas a&m university there are ways to safely build and maintain these systems that researchers like myself are actively pursuing mirza and doctoral student naga venkata saidileep korlapati are working with dr faisal khan professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and director of the mary kay o'connor process safety center (mkopsc) and dr noor quddus assistant research engineer in the mkopsc to develop bayesian networks capable of predicting pipeline failure additionally they would like to apply machine-learning techniques to create instruments that can effectively detect potential failures subsea engineers battle harsh corroding marine environments as well as corrosive fluids that flow inside the pipeline leaving pipelines extremely susceptible to damage there are also many variables to consider when dissecting pipeline systems such as differing installation processes diameter and thickness of a pipeline aging in hardware and materials failure for instance rigid pipelines are often made of carbon steel and are stiff and hard to install in contrast flexible pipelines are relatively easier and cheaper to install but difficult to maintain however despite being the industry standard in many countries flexible pipelines fail frequently due to their limited design that is comparative to that of a rubber and steel hose-like complex structure in addition many offshore systems were built decades ago without strict guidelines set in place for how to safely build structures that can withstand the test of time allowing for differentiation creates issues; there are hundreds of reasons a pipeline can fail dependent on the characteristics of that specific system unfortunately many pipelines are not checked for corrosion because they span millions of miles said mirza some are over 50 years old and they were designed with different design codes without proper maintenance if theres a leak we can only know if it is reported to the government small leaks often go undiscovered or unreported we want to use the available data to create tools that predict failure but also make it easier to determine and report the researchers are developing a bayesian framework that can foresee pipeline failure based on analyzing past incidents and variables such as structure installation methods and materials by looking at the available databases we see the past pipeline failures and can likely determine why they occurred said korlapati by researching and condensing the data we hope to predict pipeline behavior more accurately moving forward the next step in the process is instrumentation the researchers plan to create technology that can be placed on pipelines to provide data in real time if successful the research could potentially help avoid detrimental pipeline accidents which in turn helps the environment and the subsea engineering industry if we can develop the right tool placed on the correct spot on the pipeline many problems can be avoided said korlapati we are taking the things we can control and using them to ensure reliability so while a fire on the ocean is certainly scary texas a&m faculty and students are working to decrease these occurrences and improve the offshore systems that cause them
"researchers at texas a&m university will lead a hub of five institutions across the country to conduct fundamental research to support holistic decision-making for historically underrepresented communities impacted by coastal hazards the focused coastline and people research hub at texas a&m which will bring together communities stakeholders and researchers has been established thanks to a five-year nearly $42 million grant from the national science foundation along the northern gulf coast communities from texas to florida are particularly at risk for coastal hazards including hurricanes tsunamis coastal storm surges flooding sea-level rise and erosion the national science foundation's (nsf) coastlines and people (cope) program an interdisciplinary research initiative supported by several nsf divisions is aimed to study complex interactions between coastal processes human dynamics and the built environment these studies require a focused investment in novel multidisciplinary science that engages diverse local stakeholders the cope program supports coastal research hubs which aim to accomplish the above objectives by incorporating a convergent science approach the project was also endorsed by the united nations decade of ocean science for sustainable development dr maria koliou assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m will serve as lead principal investigator of the focused coastline and people research hub ""through an integrative research approach this focused hub will lead to the development of a framework that will quantify the interdependence between coastal hazards built environment geodemographics and social and cultural factors thus enabling decision making aimed at minimizing the socio-economic impact of coastal hazards to historically underrepresented communities "" she said ""what sets this focused hub apart is that through fundamental research we will build a community digital twin that will enable decision making for short- and long-term resilience actions through a new holistic perspective on diverse communities based on cultural and social aspects"" in addition to researching various tasks koliou will oversee the project schedule community engagement and ensure all milestones and deliverables are met through community events surveys roundtables and discussion forums this project will identify critical community needs priorities and concerns determine critical issues co-collect data and solicit expertise co-develop and refine research and create evaluation metrics ""this framework will be validated with data collected from tribal communities in the northern gulf coast and cultural preservation sites through engaged research and experiential drills to understand assess measure and enhance resilience "" she said"
"there will be five other co-principal investigators from texas a&m: dr petros sideris assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering; dr siyu yu assistant professor in landscape architecture and urban planning; dr anand puppala professor in civil and environmental engineering; dr jim kaihatu professor in civil and environmental engineering; and dr michelle meyer associate professor in landscape architecture and urban planning and director of the hazard reduction and recovery center there will also be four co-pis from other institutions: dr jayur madhusudan mehta assistant professor in anthropology at florida state university; dr stuart nolan research assistant/emergency management analyst at the stephenson disaster management institute at louisiana state university; dr haizhong wang associate professor of civil and construction engineering at oregon state university; and dr andres gonzalez assistant professor in the school of industrial and systems engineering at the university of oklahoma ""conducting scientific research on community resilience is a complex and multidimensional undertaking that relies on expertise from multiple disciplines including anthropology archeology urban planning and engineering principles via community-engaged research koliou said the team is truly excited to receive a nice comment from the nsf panel that summarized that 'it was so beautifully written such a pleasure to read' all the hard work put in by the team over the past year in collaborating on this proposal has been truly rewarded in a nice way and we all are looking forward to an excellent start"" the team will also collaborate closely with the us department of the interior south central climate adaptation science center part of a federal network of nine centers that work with natural and cultural resource managers to gather scientific information and build tools needed to help wildlife and ecosystems adapt to the impacts of climate change as part of the grant an engagement program will also be established to support a pipeline for high school students from these underrepresented communities into and through graduate school"
"wind turbines are a renewable energy resource of the future but installing these enormous turbines in offshore ocean environments is becoming increasingly costly and labor-intensive as society becomes more dependent on renewable energy resources the development of improved installation processes is required a team of texas a&m university researchers have theorized a way to transport and install a 15-megawatt wind turbine in offshore environments using vibratory hammers funded by the national offshore wind research and development consortium they will research the practicality and intricacies of taking this idea from theory to reality ""15-megawatt wind turbines are the future and as the wind turbine size increases it is more effective and energy-efficient "" said dr moo-hyun kim professor in the department of ocean engineering and co-principal investigator on the project ""in the united states we have never installed a gravity-based wind turbine of this size and this may be a pioneering attempt to make this feasible"" currently the most effective method for building and mounting turbines into the seabed uses a monopile foundation driven deeply into the seabed with large impact hammers the drastic increase in the size of wind turbines (from about 5 megawatts to 15 megawatts) has created an issue with pile driving requiring massive piles extending to depths of 70 meters or more for insertion of the turbine foundation the team has proposed a new way to insert wind turbines into the seabed through the use of vibratory hammers capable of quickly puncturing and temporarily loosening the seabed to install a so-called bucket foundation although these hammers have been used for installing bucket foundations in other near-shore contexts this will be the first time they will be used in an offshore application ""when the hammer vibrates it temporarily liquefies the soil and will allow the turbine to enter the soil very rapidly "" said dr charles aubeny professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering and principal investigator on the project ""as opposed to impact installation which uses one large hammer multiple vibratory hammers may be used simultaneously this means no strict limit on the foundation size"" by using vibratory hammering the foundation can be more compact this feature allows for the capability to construct the wind turbine on land then float it out to the offshore location floating the wind turbine to the site would tremendously cut down cost and construction time by bypassing the need to use a crane ""cranes are expensive and in the offshore business they charge about a half million dollars per day for use "" said dr saadat mirza professor of practice in the department of multidisciplinary engineering and co-principal investigator ""we are proposing that we assemble the whole structure onshore and float the structure out this idea is completely new to the industry"" aubeny said the use of vibratory hammers for installation of bucket foundations is also less time-consuming another competing method is called suction installation water is pumped out of the seabed and the differential pressure pushes the bucket foundation into the seabed this process generally takes around 8-10 hours in contrast the vibratory installation would only take 10-15 minutes immensely decreasing installation time and financial cost vibratory hammers also decrease noise pollution associated with installation one large hammer piling into the seafloor is much louder than vibratory hammers simultaneously working which is another benefit of their proposal their research will continue throughout the year and is primarily in the conceptualization stage the team will be determining the feasibility of the design and the economics to support the project as the world increasingly turns toward renewable energy resources their goal is to simplify the installation process for environmental and economic purposes to inspire a greener generation of energy ""oil and gas companies are moving into alternative energies "" said mirza ""this is an opportunity for us if we are successful to bring people together and start teaching alternative energy concepts to the students"""
as health workers around the world provide care to those infected with sars-cov-2 and its many variants the shortages in medical oxygen continue to deeply impact hospitals already stretched thin while portable oxygen concentrators have provided some relief to many with respiratory distress these machines sometimes do not generate enough medical oxygen to meet the fluctuating demands of a patient with worsening symptoms requiring them to be rehospitalized anticipating the increased need for better oxygen concentrators as the fight against covid-19 rages on researchers at texas a&m university have laid a computational framework to design the most optimal concentrator to filter ambient air and produce oxygen that can scale with patient demand the covid-19 pandemic has caused significant stress to our medical and emergency facilities and a surge of people requiring medical attention and hospitals have a limited number of ventilation equipment said dr faruque hasan associate professor and the ​kim mcdivitt 88 and phillip mcdivitt 87 endowed faculty fellow in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering but we could prevent some cases of hospitalization if we designed a more advanced compact and portable oxygen concentrator that has flexible operating conditions to deliver as much oxygen as the patient requires the researchers noted that oxygen concentrators based on their design would also help those suffering from other respiratory conditions like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease pneumonia and asthma a description of the study appeared online in the journal scientific reports unlike oxygen tanks that provide patients with a continuous supply of pure oxygen portable oxygen concentrators remove nitrogen from ambient air the stripping away of nitrogen is due to a process called adsorption whereby certain species of air molecules get trapped on the surface of solids among the many options available for adsorbents naturally or synthetically made materials known as zeolites act like sieves holding on to the nitrogen while allowing oxygen to pass through but despite their overall advantages oxygen concentrators are often designed with fixed specifications thereby limiting their use in meeting oxygen demands caused by a change in a patients medical condition or activity for example a patients oxygen needs could vary both in terms of flow rate and purity and current oxygen concentrators cannot be used for several different patients within the same hospital setting who require very different ventilation in the ideal case we need a system that can rapidly switch between different operating regimes for on-demand oxygen production while fulfilling different product specifications said dr akhil arora former graduate student in hasans laboratory and lead author on the study to enhance the design of current medical oxygen concentrators arora first selected three types of zeolites lix lilsx and 5a for his analysis next he ran a physics-based simulation that modeled different properties of the zeolites along with characteristics of the oxygen concentrator including the size of the adsorption chamber and the different stages within the adsorption process then using a high-performance computing cluster at texas a&m university he varied all these inputs of the simulation simultaneously to arrive at the most optimal operating range that would yield a compact easy-to-transport and high-performance medical oxygen concentrator in particular he found that the lilsx performed better than lix and 5a zeolites producing 90% pure oxygen at a high rate in addition researchers found the lilsx-based system could be used to generate different levels of oxygen purity and flow rates the experts said their study is also a first step in creating portable cyber-physical systems for home use that can change oxygen supply depending on the patients needs so if a patient requires more oxygen as symptoms worsen built-in algorithms could analyze data from oxygen sensors to predict if more ventilation is needed relay that information to off-site physicians who can then use their judgement to remotely change settings on the medical oxygen concentrator right now medical professionals are needed to administer oxygen based on the condition of the patient so at-home monitoring is not possible said hasan we hope to design a more cost- effective flexible controllable medical oxygen concentrator that can provide a personalized oxygen supply at home
"over time military clothing has evolved adapting to the needs of soldiers and the technology available a soldier's attire must be more than articles of clothing it is crucial that their uniform shields them from unpredictable weather remains durable in varying terrains and most importantly protects them against numerous forms of lethal weaponry funded by the north atlantic treaty organization dr jaime grunlan the leland t jordan 29 chair professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is applying water-based nanocoatings to military clothing adding protective properties including fire and uv-light protection as well as chemical recognition capabilities military clothing is made from a variety of textiles such as cotton wool and synthetic blends when adding a protective property the initial benefits of the material are generally lost ""the reason we like cotton is its soft texture just like we use nylon because it's strong "" said grunlan ""if the cotton is given flame-resistance properties the fiber itself is modified and the cotton will stiffen similarly nylon exposed to a flame resistance treatment will weaken changing its structure essentially takes away its valuable intrinsic properties"" grunlan has developed a water-based nontoxic solution that can add properties without changing the inherent structure of the clothing a piece of clothing is dipped into a curated solution with a positive charge extracted then placed into a solution with a negative charge the attraction of the opposing charges bonds the chemicals creating a microscopic nanocoating that adheres to the clothings surface in an imperceptible layer this technique commonly referred to as pad-dry processing can be duplicated with various solutions creating multiple layers with each new deposition each solution is tailored specifically to add certain qualities to the fabric for uv protection we would add zinc oxide or titanium dioxide said grunlan its the same ingredients youd find in sunscreen by mixing the right formula we can optimize the clothings serviceability in this case he will be creating materials that are both flame retardant and provide protection against uv (ultraviolet) light an additional unique aspect of the design is chemical recognition if the nanocoating is exposed to a hazardous substance the material will change colors ""chemical warfare is increasingly becoming a threat "" said grunlan ""many chemicals or gases cannot be seen in the air for that reason we're focused on detection based upon a color change which will notify the user of the chemical agent allowing them time to react quickly"" the water-based composition of the solution contributes significantly to its multifunctionality by not altering the fibers the textile remains conformal and seemingly unaffected by the nanocoatings this also makes the solution environmentally benign and cost-effective historically chemical treatments to clothing have been frowned upon as they have been linked to sickness and ailments however the water-based nature of this solution negates this problem making it safe for widespread usage grunlan hopes to extend this technology outside of military clothing to other areas that could benefit from protective clothing such as children's sleepwear or oil field uniforms he and his collaborators from north macedonia and serbia dr igor jordanov from ss cyril and methodius university and dr maja radetic from the university of belgrade hope to eventually create technology that can reject chemicals or kill chemicals on contact the use and success of the layer-by-layer technique opens new avenues and applications for this emerging technology"
humans and robots may be sharing some of the same goals and manufacturing spaces soon as autonomy and robot technology continue to advance researchers at texas a&m university are analyzing how this dynamic duo can work in unison to allow for one party to step up where the other may temporarily lack sarah hopko lead researcher and doctoral student and dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and former graduate student riya khurana and dr prabhakar pagilla professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering are researching the correlation between humans and autonomous assistance in manufacturing settings with large amounts of repetitive work to determine how a robot can be programmed to step in during human fatigue in a trustworthy manner humans bring flexibility and a high-level of understanding of a production line at a relatively low cost but because humans have finite physical and cognitive capacities they become tired and make errors with demanding work tasks where humans may lack the capacity to continue robots can aid in overseeing the more repetitive portions of a task lifting heavier objects or exerting force depending on the application more and more people are realizing that human-robot collaboration is a viable solution to automate productions or bring a solution to problems that pose difficult or costly roadblocks hopko said the goal of this research is to understand how specific human factors such as fatigue and trust interact with each other to make sure that the design of a collaborative robot considers the operators behavior and needs so that all bases are covered we dont want the operator to instill a false sense of safety because of their fatigued state and over-rely on the increased assistance of the robot we also dont want the operator to under-use robotic assistance when otherwise appropriate hopko said collaborative robots are to some extent the operators teammate
when collaborating with a teammate at work identifying engagement or levels of fatigue can all be done either through perception or a simple conversation you can then figure out how best to help your teammate based on the information you have gathered hopko says the goal is for human-robot interaction to be the same way the research team conducted a multi-session experiment where men and women performed metal polishing tasks in combination with a universal robot (ur10) collaborative robot using varying levels of robotic assistance under different states of cognitive fatigue participants were fatigued using a challenging visuospatial working memory task for an hour prior to performing the manufacturing tasks each participant was evaluated for fatigue situation awareness and workload through wearable physiological monitoring to determine three task performance metrics: task efficiency accuracy and precision overall the research team found that the operators performance can be improved with increased assistance levels and that increased assistance allows for cognitive fatigue recovery cognitive fatigue and automation levels influence different performance outcomes fatigue impeded the efficiency of the participants although the levels of accuracy and precision were not affected it took them longer to complete the task we also found that the female participants reported greater performance benefits from utilizing high automation while the male participants did not perceive a benefit from the assistance despite demonstrating comparable task performance hopko said this finding is unique and important for robotic technology acceptance with industry 40 advances as more industries are adopting collaborative robots in their work processes while increased performance and fatigue recovery are highlighted benefits of robotic assistance it also showed that higher support reduced the situation awareness of participants by reducing their task engagement and mental stimulation lower situation awareness can result in safety concerns thus higher levels of automation warrant improved adaptivity to operator fatigue states while ensuring human-in-the-loop interactions there was also a strong correlation between situation awareness and automation observed in both heart rate variability signals and subjective measures these findings highlight the potential of wearables to help communicate critical information from the operators to the robots hopko said ultimately greater robotic assistance was able to improve accuracy and efficiency levels but not precision the consideration of the interplay between human factors such as operator sex and their cognitive states and robot factors on collaborative performance can lead to improved human-robot collaborative system designs we hope to have collaboration between the operator and robot to be as robust to perturbing factors by providing this knowledge unobtrusively to robots to aid in the fluent human-robot adaptation process hopko said this work was supported by the national science foundation
motor vehicle crashes are one of the leading causes of death for law enforcement officers in the line of duty accounting for almost 40% of fatal work injuries a principal reason this statistic is higher than the national average is that these crashes often include the use of in-vehicle technologies while driving motor vehicle crashes are a major cause of law enforcement officers injuries and deaths in the line of duty zahabi said the main contributors to these crashes include officers use of in-vehicle technologies while driving fatigue and lack of sufficient training in handling high-demand situations researchers at texas a&m university are monitoring law enforcement officers driving workload to develop in-vehicle technologies and training solutions that will adapt to an officers workload to reduce the risk of crashes in law enforcement operations dr maryam zahabi assistant professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering received a 2021 national science foundations (nsf) faculty early career development (career) award for her research adaptive driver assistance systems and personalized training for law enforcement officers this project employs a combination of human performance modeling approaches machine-learning algorithms and behavioral and physiological measures in a hybrid algorithm to provide adaptations in real time the career award is the nsfs most prestigious award that supports early-career faculty who have the potential to become role models in both research and education at their respective institutions the goal of zahabis research is to provide law enforcement officers with real-time in-vehicle technology and driver-training adaptations to improve the driving training process and establish a strong education program model to train incoming law enforcement officers this research also paves the way for the next generation of students and scholars in human-computer interaction research the project will be conducted in three phases during the first phase the team will be administering ride-along observations with law enforcement officers to build human-performance models based on the data collected phase 2 will use these models and algorithms to provide a real-time adaptation of in-vehicle technologies based on a drivers cognitive state which the team will evaluate using a driving simulation experiment in phase 3 the team will create a flexible driving simulation-based training for law enforcement officers to improve the speed at which driving and interaction with in-vehicle technologies can be mastered the team will then compare the effectiveness of this training with conventional non-adaptive training approaches that are currently used in law enforcement agencies we are in the first phase of this project and are developing the human-performance models for novice law enforcement officers using r software which is a free open-source and platform-independent software package zahabi said we are planning to evaluate the performance of these models with the data that we will collect from the ride-alongs this research aims to fill three gaps in particular: creating a holistic human-performance model of an individuals cognitive state expanding on the devices used to monitor a drivers cognitive state and developing an adaptive driving simulation-based training system human performance models have not provided a comprehensive evaluation of the human cognitive state and applications for these models are still limited to normal driving conditions and are unable to model time-sensitive situations that many law enforcement officers face in their everyday jobs the research team will use a combination of cognitive models machine-learning algorithms and real-time physiological and behavioral data to provide a more comprehensive adaptive system previous examinations on adaptive training are generally a proof of concept without implementation in actual training settings which might have been due to the limitations of off-the-shelf training media we will fill this gap by developing an adaptive driving simulation-based training system zahabi said this career research seeks to fill this knowledge gap by establishing novice law enforcement officers performance models that can accurately represent their cognitive perceptual and motor demands while driving
the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university installed a new driving simulator to use in research pertaining to driving autonomous vehicles and innovative research like zahabis it is a one-of-a-kind feature on campus that can be driven manually or autonomously with a 270-degree field of vision due to the many different types of research that might require a driving simulator interdisciplinary teamwork is almost inherent in any project that incorporates this technology
in manufacturing work-related lower-back injuries from lifting and handling heavy objects account for approximately $100 billion in medical bills annually in the united states according to data from the bureau of labor statistics although novel ergonomic interventions such as industrial exoskeletons have shown promise in reducing the risk of musculoskeletal injuries new research finds that the cognitive fit (where the wearer has ample mental resources available to accurately operate the exoskeleton while conducting their daily work tasks) of such wearable robotic solutions in the workplace may impose newer risks on workers these findings address some of the critical concerns by the national institute of occupational safety and health (niosh) on occupational robotics researchers at texas a&m university and the ohio state university have determined that increased cognitive demands in the workplace often associated with new technologies or automation can offset the mechanical advantages of wearing a low-back exoskeleton a wearable device that is aimed to reduce or redistribute biomechanical spine loading associated with heavy manual work these findings are published in the latest issue of applied ergonomics the research team includes dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and director of the neuroergonomics laboratory; yibo zhu graduate student in industrial and systems engineering and member of the neuroergonomics laboratory; eric weston graduate research associate in industrial systems engineering at the ohio state university; and dr william marras professor of integrated systems engineering neurological surgery orthopedics and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the spine research institute at the ohio state university
this is the first study looking into the brain as a user was performing a lifting task wearing a back exoskeleton mehta said we were able to document the neurocognitive ‘cost of wearing an exoskeleton and identify adaptation strategies adopted by users over time to mitigate the cognitive risks introduced by the exoskeleton we were also able to demonstrate the utility of using ambulatory brain imaging and connectivity analysis during this highly movement-oriented physical task the team recruited healthy adults both men and women with no history of lower back injuries to participate in the study that required extensive lifting both with and without the help of a low back exoskeleton participants attended two sessions one session focused on performing the lifting tasks while wearing an exoskeleton and another session without the exoskeleton each participant was fitted with a mechanical exoskeleton attached to their chest and legs while they repeatedly lifted a medicine ball for 30 minutes after a similar amount of rest break they were then asked to perform the same task with the help of an exoskeleton but were also asked to simultaneously perform a mental task: subtract 13 from a number between 500 and 1 000 each time they lifted the ball these tasks allowed the researchers to measure spinal load using advanced emg (electromyographic)-assisted biomechanical modeling and monitor functional brain activation during the task using an ambulatory brain imaging device called functional near-infrared spectroscopy integrating traditional biomechanical/ergonomics and ambulatory neuroimaging techniques allowed them to assess the neuroergonomic fit of human-exoskeleton interaction the results show that the exoskeleton did not significantly reduce spinal compression loads and had a marginal practical benefit in reducing spine shear loads compared to not wearing an exoskeleton however the cost of wearing the exoskeleton was captured via the neuroergonomic assessment compared to the no exoskeleton condition the use of exoskeletons during lifting recruited additional regions of the brain that are typically involved in regulating alertness and vigilance the study also found that when each individual was tasked with solving a math problem to accompany the lifts to simulate external cognitive demands on workers they lost whatever biomechanical benefits were offered by the exoskeleton in the first place cognitive demands have been shown to exacerbate spinal loading during lifting that these demands completely offset the small mechanical advantage of the exoskeleton is a remarkable finding of the study mehta said we wanted to shed some light on how the use of an industrial exoskeleton impacts the workers motor and cognitive capabilities given that the worker has to learn new motor strategies to work efficiently while wearing exoskeletons to do their work a neuroergonomics approach ie evaluating brain-behavior relationships at work was able to capture cognitive risks of exoskeletons that traditional ergonomics and biomechanical measures were not able to the data concludes that an increase in an individuals cognitive response to tasks will hinder and even cancel out the benefits that are associated with wearing an exoskeleton we wanted to document how the brain processes human-exoskeleton interaction to identify potential training strategies that can be utilized to minimize the cognitive risks and support faster motor adaptation strategies mehta said while exoskeletons hold great promise in alleviating physical loads in the workplace these findings can guide the development of decision support tools for ergonomists to determine when/how and during what tasks exoskeletons should be used on the factory floor to maximize worker safety
using sophisticated microscopy and computational analysis texas a&m university researchers have now validated the merit of a water purification technology that uses electricity to remove and inactivate an assortment of waterborne viruses they said that the yet-to-be-implemented water purification strategy would add another level of safety against pathogens that cause gastrointestinal ailments and other infections in humans there is always a need for new techniques that are better cheaper and more effective at safeguarding the public against disease-causing microorganisms said dr shankar chellam professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering the water purification technique investigated in this study is a promising strategy to kill even more viruses at the earliest stages of water purification the researchers have detailed their findings in the journal environmental science & technology before water reaches homes it undergoes multiple purification steps namely coagulation sedimentation filtration and disinfection conventional coagulation methods use chemicals to trigger the clumping of particles and microbes within untreated water these aggregates can then be removed when they settle as sediments while very effective chellam noted that the chemicals used for coagulation could be very acidic making their transport to treatment plants and storage a challenge thus instead of chemicals-based coagulation the researchers investigated if an up-and-coming coagulation method that uses electricity was as effective at removing microbes from water in particular they used a surrogate of a nonenveloped virus called ms2 bacteriophage for their study their choice of microbes was motivated by the fact that ms2 bacteriophage shares structural similarities with many nonenveloped viruses that can persist in the water after treatment and cause disease in humans for their experiments the researchers inserted iron electrodes in a sample of untreated water laden with viruses when they passed electrical currents the anode oxidized releasing iron ions into the solution these ions combine with dissolved oxygen to produce hydroxyl radicals and also iron-rich precipitates in the process they found that as the iron precipitated the virus attached to these clumps to form bigger aggregates which could be easily removed from the water
next they investigated if this process also inactivated the virus but while the iron aggregates helped in capturing the virus they presented a problem to picture inactivation using electron microscopy clumping causes a tremendous challenge because there is no easy way to isolate the virus from the iron-rich aggregates making it difficult to visualize viral damage and analyze if electrocoagulation was the cause of the viral damage or the virus extraction from the iron-rich clumps said dr anindito sen a research scientist at the texas a&m microscopy and imaging center to address this problem chellams graduate student kyungho kim with sens guidance developed a novel computational technique to directly image the viruses aggregated alongside iron put briefly they digitally inflicted damages on 3d images of an intact ms2 bacteriophage then they generated 2d versions of the damaged 3d model last they compared these images with 2d microscopic images of the virus obtained after electrocoagulation the researchers found that the damage in electrocoagulated viruses ranged from 10% to greater than 60% further by following the same analysis with bacteriophages isolated from conventional coagulation they observed that the viruses were not inactivated the traditional multistep process of water purification has been there to ensure that even if one step fails the subsequent ones can bail you out a multiple barrier approach so to speak said chellam what we are proposing with electrocoagulation is process intensification where coagulation and disinfection are combined within a single step before subsequent purification stages to ensure better protection against waterborne pathogens this study is funded by the national science foundation dr jothikumar narayanan from the centers for disease control and prevention also contributed to this research by demonstrating genomic damage in the virus caused by electrocoagulation the microscopy results in the study were confirmed with enumerations of infective viruses by traditional cell culture techniques spectroscopy and genomic analysis
proposals from 18 us university-led research teams from the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) totaling $255 million were selected as awardees for prototyping contracts by the joint hypersonics transition office (jhto) the teams include participation from us industry national labs federally funded research and development centers university-affiliated research centers and australian universities this years awardees represent outstanding research proposals from our consortium members said dr gillian bussey director jhto the research they are working on is aligned with our goals and will have a major impact on advancing the field of hypersonics the following are the awardees for the first project call: university of illinois at urbana-champaign: non-destructive testing for hypersonics materials manufacturing of carbon/carbon composites georgia institute of technology: machine learning enhanced ultrasonic inspection for non-destructive characterization of manufacturing defects in hypersonic materials north carolina agricultural and technical: impact welding and phase change enabled sealing of high temperature metal-composite interfaces georgia institute of technology: improved window and radome material testing for hypersonic vehicle sensors and seekers university of virginia: additive manufacturing of high-performance niobium alloys components for scramjet applications: going beyond alloy c103 georgia institute of technology: development and experimental validation of multi-modal control for rapidly-changing flight dynamics pennsylvania state university: next generation numerical methods for high-fidelity trajectory generation for hypersonic vehicles university of michigan: robust adaptive control of a dual-mode scramjet with targeted uncertainty quantification university of central florida: high-performance solid-fuels for hypersonic air breathing propulsion the university of texas at arlington: experimental and numerical investigation of directed energy radiation interactions for hypersonic applications university of arizona: fusion of multi-fidelity experimental and computational data for the construction and enrichment of a surrogate aerodynamic database united states air force academy: free flight wind tunnel experiments and simulations for control jet applications in hypersonic flows texas a&m engineering experiment station: shock interface cooling in hypersonic environments the university of texas at san antonio: modeling and experimental measurements of hypersonic separation events air force institute of technology: efficient multidisciplinary optimization methodologies for hypersonic systems johns hopkins university: machine-learning informed topology optimization for multiscale design of cellular structures university of iowa: energetic materials selection and micro-structural design for robust performance under damage scenarios university of alabama-huntsville: solid fuel rotating detonation ramjet engine for hypersonic air-breathing propulsion this is the first in a series of planned solicitations from jhto through ucah over the next four years for more information about open solicitations see our project calls or view the full press release
ucah is a collective network of universities partnering with government industry national laboratories federally funded research centers and university-affiliated research centers to serve the us department of defense requirements in hypersonics-related science and technology workforce development and technology transition ucah is a five-year $100-million consortium funded by the joint hypersonics transition office and led by dr rodney bowersox executive director ucah and associate dean for research texas a&m engineering experiment station
"dr jodie lutkenhaus professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university will be awarded the arthur k doolittle award by the american chemical society's (acs) division of polymetric materials: science and engineering (pmse) ""receiving this award is a major highlight for me "" said lutkenhaus ""i am honored to be considered among the researchers that have accepted this award in the past"" lutkenhaus earned this honor for her outstanding talk on flexible mxene coatings at the acs pmse fall symposium mxenes are two-dimensional nanomaterials that are incredibly conductive and used in various applications including electronics energy storage and sensing since they are transition-metal carbides or nitrides they can be layered as well as altered to obtain specific chemical properties by alternating layers of mxenes and polymer a composite mxene film can be created prior to studies conducted by texas a&m researchers mxenes were studied without a polymer additive producing films that easily cracked and flaked away ""a mxene film contains many of these two-dimensional nanosheets stacked together like a brick wall "" she said ""in our work we use a polymer additive as the ‘mortar to hold all of the mxene nanosheets together in a robust film"" the polymer acts as a glue adhering to the faces of the mxene sheets furthermore the researcher's processing system organizes all of the mxene sheets into a flat and layered structure this research is a step toward applying mxene films to numerous different surfaces including fabrics plastics or paints she hopes these developments can lead to innovations such as spray-paint batteries supercapacitors within fabrics or painted-on sensors this work is part of a collaborative grant from the national science foundation with dr micah green professor in the chemical engineering department and dr miladin radovic professor in the department of materials science and engineering lutkenhaus will be formally presented the award at the acs spring national meeting"
"the next time you buy a new couch you may not ever have to leave your old one to get a feel for the texture of the new material dr cynthia hipwell oscar s wyatt jr '45 chair ii professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university is leading a team working to better define how the finger interacts with a device with the hope of aiding in the further development of technology that goes beyond sensing and reacting to your touch the team's research was recently published and featured on the cover of the journal advanced materials the ultimate goal of furthering this human-machine interface is to give touch devices the ability to provide users with a richer touch-based experience by equipping the technology with the ability to mimic the feeling of physical objects hipwell shared examples of potential implementations ranging from a more immersive virtual reality platform to tactile display interfaces like those in a motor vehicle dashboard and a virtual shopping experience that would let the user feel the texture of materials before purchasing them ""this could allow you to actually feel textures buttons slides and knobs on the screen "" hipwell said ""it can be used for interactive touch screen-based displays but one holy grail would certainly be being able to bring touch into shopping so that you could feel the texture of fabrics and other products while you're shopping online"" hipwell explained that at its essence the ""touch"" in current touch screen technology is more for the screen's benefit than the user with the emergence and refinement of increasingly sophisticated haptic technology that relationship between user and device can grow to be more reciprocal"
"she added that the addition of touch as a sensory input would ultimately enrich virtual environments and lighten the burden of communication currently carried by audio and visuals ""when we look at virtual experiences they're primarily audio and visual right now and we can get audio and visual overload "" hipwell said ""being able to bring touch into the human-machine interface can bring a lot more capability much more realism and it can reduce that overload haptic effects can be used to draw your attention to make something easier to find or easier to do using a lower cognitive load"" hipwell and her team are approaching the research by looking at the multiphysics the coupled processes or systems involving multiple physical fields occurring at the same time of the interface between the user's finger and the device this interface is incredibly complex and changes with different users and environmental conditions ""we're looking at electro-wetting effects (the forces that result from an applied electric field) electrostatic effects changes in properties of the finger the material properties and surface geometry of the device the contact mechanics the fluid motion charge transport really everything that's going on in the interface to understand how the device can be designed to be more reliable and higher performing hipwell said ultimately our goal is to create predictive models that enable a designer to create devices with maximum haptic effect and minimum sensitivity to user and environmental variation"" as research into and development of the technology continues to progress hipwell said she predicts consumers will begin to see early elements implemented into common devices over the next few years with some early products already in development ""i think early elements of it will definitely be within the next five years "" hipwell said ""then it will just be a matter of maturing the technology and how advanced how realistic and how widespread it becomes"""
"public temperature checks have become a common practice across the world during the covid-19 pandemic and researchers at texas a&m university are working to make it possible to conduct the test across a large group of people quicker and less expensive than current methods dr choongho yu professor and sallie and don davis 61 faculty fellow ii in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering is working alongside his students to harness the thermal energy generated by body heat to power a small self-sustaining electronic device capable of detecting fever in its wearer the team's research was recently published in nature communications if successful yu said such a device could benefit a large number of people especially when implemented in a public setting by quickly and efficiently identifying fever the fever detector can be distributed to many unspecified people at public places at a low price and this technique could be helpful in the early and fast detection of fever commonly observed from a viral infection such as covid sars mers and swine flu yu said graduate student yufan zhang who works with yu on the project said that while fever detection can serve as an effective way to minimize viral transmission during a pandemic a cheap visible and self-sustainable technique is needed to accomplish this goal ""thermal energy scavenging shows great potential since an output voltage can be obtained by a temperature difference supplied by the fever "" said zhang ""to visualize the temperature changes an electrochromic fever detector has been fabricated and connected to the thermal energy harvester"" using new principles of thermo-hydro-electrochemical energy conversion yu and his team are working to develop an effective method of providing charge to their fever detection device by harnessing the thermal energy typically wasted by its user via the corrosion properties of carbon steel electrodes ""our device is based on carbon steel corrosion to generate voltage and current "" yu said ""the lifetime of our device depends on the speed of the corrosion process"" given the typical rate of corrosion for carbon steel yu said the amount utilized by their device could last for more than a decade while the team is still working to improve the power and current of their device the results so far have been promising with the observed thermal-to-energy conversion generating an unprecedented 87 millivolts per degree celsius this has provided a few volts large enough to operate typical wearable electronics by connecting between four to eight devices in a series unlike conventional thermoelectric devices that require at least 1000 devices to get an equivalent voltage"
the amount of data produced each year by scientific user facilities such as those at national labs or government organizations can range up to several billion gigabytes per year this massive amount of data generation has now begun to exceed researchers capacity to effectively parse this data in order to accomplish their scientific goals a supersized problem when it comes to achieving new scientific advances to develop new mathematical and computational techniques to reduce the size of these data sets the us department of energy (doe) awarded $137 million to nine projects as a part of the advanced scientific computing research (ascr) program in september 2021 a team led by dr byung-jun yoon associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has received $24 million to address the challenges of moving storing and processing the massive data sets produced and processed by scientific workflows the overarching principle of this project is to focus on the scientific objectives of each data set and maintain retention of the quantities of interest (qoi) that pertain to the objectives by optimizing the representation of the data while keeping the focus on the scientific goals at hand yoons team is able to preserve the important information that can lead to scientific breakthroughs despite the significant reduction in data size our idea is to not only significantly reduce the amount of data but to ultimately preserve the goals for which the data is intended to serve said yoon that's why we call it the objective-based data reduction for scientific workflows we want to reduce the amount of data but not sacrifice the quantities or qualities of interest one of the first steps yoons team will take to accomplish this goal is to utilize an information-theoretic approach to find a compact representation of the data by exploiting semantics and invariances they will also look at how data reduction impacts the achievement of the final goals based on which they will jointly optimize the models that compose general scientific workflows an example of how an overwhelming amount of data can become unmanageable is cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-em) which is a method widely used for molecular structure analysis during cryo-em typical datasets are composed of thousands of micrographs that contain projection images of the molecules in various orientations that are several terabytes in size another example is through x-ray scattering experiments which are routinely performed to analyze material structure when performed in a mapping mode where the x-ray exposures are performed across a samples cross-section a single scattering map is a 4d dataset that may contain around 10 billion values the thing that i'm most excited about is probably for the first time we are looking into this data reduction problem from an objective-based perspective which i believe may not have been done by others yoon said we are proposing a metric that can be used for objective-based quantification of the impact of data reduction and then optimizing the data reduction pipeline by using this metric so that we can preserve the usability of the data to support the final goal the ultimate performance that we can bring by applying this idea to our data reduction is also very exciting the mission of the ascr program is to discover develop and deploy computational and networking capability to analyze model simulate and predict complex phenomena important to the doe and the advancement of science in addition to yoon co-principal investigators are dr edward dougherty and dr xiaoning qian from the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m; this project also involves collaborators at brookhaven national lab and the university of illinois at urbana-champaign
while medical materials have come a long way toward treating conditions in the body sometimes theyre a bit too stiff to be a perfect fit research at texas a&m university aims to engineer new biomaterials that will provide effective treatment while also moving better with the body i think at the biggest picture what gets me excited is to build dynamic responsive materials and use those to make medical devices said dr taylor ware associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering wares lab work ranges from new material development to device engineering one project is finding innovative material solutions to treating urinary incontinence a condition where there is uncontrolled leakage of urine treatment may include a surgical option where a mesh sling is implanted underneath the urethra to provide support this device has to balance between ensuring there is no leaking while the person is doing day-to-day activities but can release when they need to void however current slings are limited because the clinician has to find the perfect balance to make sure the patient doesn't suffer unintended consequences ware's research aims to develop a device similar to human tissue thats adaptive using a type of material called liquid crystal elastomers that react to heat the team's idea is to 3d print a material that would heat slightly and change shape when illuminated with infrared light allowing a person to void their bladder easily when the material cools it returns to its original shape allowing the person to remain continent in wares lab this project is led by doctoral student seelay tasmim the work is collaborative with dr philippe zimmern professor and clinical urologist at the ut southwestern medical center and dr mario romero-ortega at the university of houston the research is funded by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering at the national institutes of health ware said these types of biomaterials could open the door for a variety of applications these materials are artificial muscles and we see these materials as useful in a variety of biomedical applications that require mechanical motion ware said for example surgical or even wearable robots may benefit from these soft materials that may be able to replace traditional motors and actuators
"turbomachinery is a crucial component in many applications requiring high power density equipment such as rockets planes and power plants a critical part of their success is the bearings that help keep their rotors spinning texas a&m university researchers are working to improve this rotation advances in process fluid-lubricated bearings used in turbomachinery technology could lead to direct benefits for the power generation oil and gas and aviation industries dr adolfo delgado associate professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is working to increase the technology readiness level of these bearings by developing new designs and characterizing their performance particularly those that use gas as the working fluid delgado has published his research on this topic in the american society of mechanical engineering journal of engineering for gas turbines and power ""we are currently looking at smart dampers for hybrid bearings and conducting system-level tests using a turboexpander dummy rotor "" delgado said ""we need to prevent contact between the rotor and the bearing surface while maintaining acceptable vibration levels as the rotor transitions through critical speeds"" delgado said that while gas bearings themselves are not a new concept they can be found in many applications including dentist drills gyroscopes small power generation turbines and even air cycle machines in airplanes their use in megawatt-class turbomachinery has not yet come to fruition ""gas bearings are currently used in many applications with a direct impact in our lives "" delgado said ""this technology will enable the development of higher power density turbomachinery able to reach higher speeds with a smaller footprint among other benefits gas bearings will allow us to reduce the weight and footprint of turbomachinery while allowing operation at higher speeds and temperatures in other words gas bearings will enable the development of higher power density turbomachinery"" delgado said the goal of preventing contact between the parts could be achieved by applying a damped flexible support alongside the gas film however this is the greatest challenge facing the bearing's progress toward being a viable replacement for oil-lubricated bearings ""the most significant challenge that we still need to tackle is damping as difficult as it may seem we can easily levitate a 500 kg rotor with two gas bearings having a gas film of roughly 12 micrometers a width thinner than a human hair "" delgado said ""that is not the difficult part the actual challenge is to spin that rotor to 20 000 rpm while minimizing vibration levels and keeping the system stable"" delgados research is currently supported by the texas a&m turbomachinery research consortium"
as part of the energy transition the energy industry is looking toward the oceans for reliable sustainable and renewable energy sources researchers and engineers aim to create technology that can supply cost-competitive ocean renewable power to support coastal communities which comprise half of the us population dr heonyong kang assistant professor in the department of ocean engineering at texas a&m university is stepping up to this challenge with two separate projects focusing on wave energy converters: one for small-scale and the other for utility-scale applications progress with federal support kangs first project initially came from the us department of energys (doe) wave energy prize competition in 2015 the competition showed that a few conceptual floating wave energy converters are promising but their designs tend to result in expensive or uncompetitive capital expenditure (capex) and operational expenditure (opex) to achieve competitive levelized cost of energy (lcoe) below 40 cents per kilowatt-hour kangs doe-funded project involves a team of multidisciplinary researchers seeking to actualize their patented surface riding wave energy converter (sr-wec) as a cost-competitive solution for small- to intermediate-scale power supplies sr-wecs feature a unique adaptive resonance for varying random waves which produce high-capture width ratios and a modular lightweight system that has the generator sealed these properties substantially reduce capex opex and consequently the competitive lcoe
since this project was initially introduced to the department kangs team has developed two optimum prototype designs of sr-wec: a small-scale sr-wec for self-recharging autonomous underwater vehicles and an intermediate-scale sr-wec for kilowatt-scale power supplies for powering the blue economy applications now they are working on crafting scaled prototypes the prototypes will first be tested in a dry testbed and then in the 2d wave-current-wind basin in college station although we have been facing numerous challenges throughout this pioneering research we get more excited and motivated as we discover new knowledge and recognize we are helping the energy transition said kang partnering with industry to commercialize ocean wave energy kang is also working with global perpetual energy (gpe) a texas renewable energy company to create a utility-scale wave energy converter that will be able to produce megawatt-scale power evolving from gpes patented ocean renewable energy platform kang is developing an optimum wave energy converter system that effectively extracts energy from elastic deformation resonance with waves over a large area the system design was inspired by the fact that the wave energy spans the entire length of the wave measuring tens to hundreds of meters the goal of this gpe-sponsored project is to test a prototype offshore in galveston what we are trying to do is find a solution both effective and cost-competitive he said by combining both we can reach a competitive lcoe so that the public can access wave energy that is renewable clean close to half of the us population and consistently available throughout the day and night and in mild to severe sea states
a grant from the us department of education is paving the way to address the country's need for resilient infrastructure while training the next generation of engineers in advanced construction methods and technologies disasters from natural hazards such as hurricanes floods and earthquakes increase the need for rapidly constructible and resilient infrastructure to expedite the recovery of affected areas and minimize socioeconomic impacts while also preventing future disasters the graduate assistantships in areas of national need (gaann) program in infrastructure resilience in the context of advanced construction methods led by project director dr petros sideris will adopt advance and implement novel cutting-edge construction methods such as large-scale 3d printing advanced construction methods offer out-of-the-box design solutions that can achieve decreased construction times through automation lower environmental impacts through reduced materials use and waste and potentially lower construction costs sideris said affordable resilient structures are also key to addressing the housing crisis both nationally and internationally thus contributing to social resilience our gaann program constitutes a unique educational and research approach that will provide engineers with special training to enter academic industrial and government fields and serve the country's needs the gaann program specifically supports diversity in academia and the civil engineering profession as a whole by joining the efforts of texas a&m's louis stokes alliances for minority participation program the texas a&m college of engineering's access and inclusion program and the college of engineering's women in engineering program sideris said they are working to reach a broad and diverse pool of highly qualified applicants especially women and underrepresented minorities the program will offer gaann fellows well-rounded training in research and teaching as well as professional development opportunities and international experiences all gaann fellows will also have access to cutting-edge experimental facilities such as the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) with its advanced equipment including small- and large-scale 3d printers the project team also includes lead co-director dr anand puppala professor and cir interim director; and co-directors dr maria koliou assistant professor; dr luciana barroso associate professor; dr zachary grasley department head and professor; and dr mary beth hueste professor and associate department head for undergraduate programs learn more about the gaann program
the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) a joint center between the texas a&m engineering experiment station and the texas a&m transportation institute is a leading global source for the development of transformative infrastructure solutions through cross-industry and government agency collaboration the cir facilitates the creation of state-of-the-art methods technologies and solutions that society needs for infrastructure renewal the cir houses researchers who are developing advanced and sustainable materials and structural systems that will reduce cost and extend infrastructure life safety resiliency and durability
"chances are youve either heard of the global semiconductor chip shortage or been personally affected by it when looking into purchasing a new or used vehicle over the last year and a half you might be wondering why this has happened and how the situation can be remediated two faculty members in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university dr paul gratz professor and stavros kalafatis professor of practice and associate department head are weighing in to provide answers over the last 20 years the semiconductor chip manufacturing process underwent a large shift resulting in most fabrication occurring overseas this change worked well for the semiconductor industry pre-pandemic because manufacturers were able to design the chips in house and have them fabricated for much less at overseas locations in 2020 when the pandemic shocked the world consumers were purchasing less of everything and subsequently tech companies stopped purchasing inventory when the world kept spinning in a new virtual way with many working from home items such as laptops and other electronics became in extremely high demand personal computer sales grew by 11% in 2020 the highest growth for that technology in a decade this unexpected demand shocked many in the electronics business no one was prepared for all that ensued in 2020 but the automotive industry was particularly affected by the shortage and continues to feel those consequences today this in part stems from the decision to cease orders for microcontrollers and other chips early in the pandemic due to the prediction that consumers would not need or want to buy a car during that time coupled with these chips being used for cars as well as other technology such as smartphones and laptops the stock is simply not available at this time ""there are only so many chips that can be built per unit of time "" gratz explained ""right now all of the fabrication facilities are running out of inventory and are still not able to keep up with the demand it takes a long time (around two years) to build new ones so we are stuck with what we have until more fabrication facilities can come online"" kalafatis a former senior director with intel explained that intel is the last volume processor manufacturer in the united states with fabrication facilities that are local and what that means for the computer and automotive industry which both use these chips a lot of these high-end fabs that are local are targeted toward the production of microprocessors kalafaits said so that helps the laptop and desktop market but it doesn't help automotive very much the international data corporation predicts the semiconductor market to reach $600 billion by 2025 – representing a compound annual growth rate of 53% through the forecast period which is higher than the typical 3-4% mature growth seen historically so where do we go from here gratz says a start would be to house more fabrication facilities in the us in addition to benefiting national security this could help with fabrication time in the long run in the short term chip companies such as taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company intel and samsung are actively spending hundreds of billions on increasing capacity to meet the demand despite these efforts both gratz and kalafatis believe it will take at least six months to a year for the semiconductor chip industry to get back to more normal operating procedures closer to home the texas a&m engineering experiment stations hewlett packard enterprise center for computer architecture research made possible with a generous donation from hewlett packard enterprise is providing the capability for researchers to design novel semiconductor chips that will change the landscape of computer architectures through academic-industry collaboration the center is working to ultimately make a long-term impact in this area of semiconductor chips"
millions of barrels of oil are produced daily from us shale reservoirs yet this quantity is small in comparison to the actual amount of oil locked away in these subsurface rocks the oil and gas industry has put fiber-optic sensing cables downhole to better understand hydraulic fracture results and why stimulation and production processes dont free the trapped oil at expected rates unfortunately the streams of information received from these sensors are massive and hard to sort through a multidisciplinary team including researchers at texas a&m university and a faculty member from the colorado school of mines has created an algorithm to clean up the subsurface data from fracturing efforts and offer a clear view of how and where these processes succeeded and failed in shale reservoir rocks our quantitative characterization retrieves more information about fracture geometries within a reservoir than a simple qualitative analysis would said dr kan wu associate professor and chevron corporation faculty fellow in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering weve tested our algorithm and already applied it in the field the results were published on nov 11 2021 in the society of petroleum engineers spe production & operation journal traditional data interpretation methods though incredibly helpful to engineers are based strictly on qualitative information or probabilities based on patterns of information in contrast the algorithm was developed to gather quantitative data thats countable like temperature pressure or rock deformation changes within a reservoir it recognizes the outcomes that occurred to create the changes and accurately models how far and fast the fractures traveled what directions they went and how big they became low-frequency distributed acoustic sensing (das) data gathering has only been around for five years so not all information received from the wells with fiber optics has been fully deciphered also each well has its own range of characteristics due to the enormous variations of subsurface structures this complexity is why wu and her colleagues fellow faculty member dr george moridis professor and robert l whiting chair and dr ge jin assistant professor of geophysics at mines needed a considerable amount of time to meticulously develop their algorithm first the researchers tested the algorithms ability to clean the data and interpret simple streams from known fracture processes that way they could backtrack or reverse the information to find the starting point of a fractures growth as the algorithm was expanded to understand more complex information they improved its ability to think in a forward manner and predict how new and complex fractures initiate and grow
wu is an expert in rock mechanics jin an expert in geophysics and das technology and moridis is an expert in advanced numerical methods and high-performance computing of coupled processes because of the multidisciplinary backgrounds of the project team the algorithm possesses incredible flexibility to grow and adapt to the type of data it receives for instance yongzan liu the graduate student on the project for over two years is now a postdoc researcher using similar methods and modeling on fiber-optic data from hydrate-bearing sediments to monitor natural gas production for the lawrence berkeley national laboratory liu wu moridis and jin are the first to develop this type of algorithm and publish results the goal of their research is to eventually automate the algorithm so that feedback from fracturing events happens in near real time on a drill site this way engineers can quickly tailor fracture design efforts to each wells particular composition the industry needs this type of tool to understand fracture geometry and to monitor fracture propagation said wu the more efficient it becomes the better it will help optimize hydraulic fracture and completion designs and maximize well production
in an effort to continue broadening the understanding of advanced nuclear technology the texas a&m engineering experiment station has installed the nuscale small modular reactor control room simulator at the center for advanced small modular and micro reactors (casmr) the simulator at casmr will provide an authentic feel of being in the control room at a 12-unit small modular reactor plant equipped with features and functionality unique to nuscale technology the simulator is intended to provide an innovative multidisciplinary training and educational environment to undergraduate and graduate students as well as professionals the simulator will help enhance casmrs outreach opportunities and broaden the understanding of the working of state-of-the-art modular nuclear plants among students researchers and operators at off-site locations said dr yassin hassan director of casmr regents professor and holder of the peterson chair in the texas a&m university college of engineering casmrs goal is to hasten the development of new and transformative technologies materials and modeling and simulation that will make nuclear energy more affordable sustainable and rapidly deployable the center also brings together a diverse group of domestic and international partners to collaborate on nuclear energy initiatives to bridge the gaps between basic research engineering development and commercialization the simulator is supported by the us department of energy nuclear energy university program through generic scientific infrastructure grants for multi-universities for small modular reactor simulators at oregon state university the university of idaho at the center for advanced energy studies and texas a&m
the covid-19 pandemic exposed the critical need for new risk management strategies that can quickly shift production and logistics to meet customer demand surges during disruptions to address this problem the secureamerica institute (sai) launched a nationwide search for projects that could further empower and secure a resilient us manufacturing and defense industrial base dr eleftherios iakovou director of supply chain management for sai and director of manufacturing and logistics innovation initiatives for the texas a&m engineering experiment station is working on a holistic end-to-end supply chain management data-driven framework to detect problems and increase supply chain resiliency and agility of supply chains in the united states resilient supply chains must be cost-competitive to be sustainable in the future said iakovou who is also the harvey hubbell professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university we have adversaries who are aggressively trying to undercut the united states industrial base by producing and selling at low cost an agile resilient supply chain is one that bounces back as quickly as possible from a disruption with the ability to ramp up and sustain production efficiently thus ensuring business continuity for the defense industrial base and other critical supply chains of the nation to meet this moment where economic security and national security have become so tightly interwoven iakovous project will identify the data needed from internal and external stakeholders to discover paradigm shifts and provide a roadmap for designing next-generation supply chain networks that are more robust in a cost-competitive fashion resiliency needs supply chain visibility and mapping and ensures business continuity iakovou said take for example news of the decline in cdl drivers who transport cargo across the united states this impacts our supply chain but the issue extends further its not simply the lack of drivers hurting our resilience its the wait times these drivers experience when arriving at todays clogged ports or terminals indicatively there are serious flaws in todays digital appointment platforms at marine container terminals which along with other inefficiencies hinder drivers from ensuring their appointment windows are honored after 14 hours the federal government mandates drivers must clock out iakovou said what happens when they are forced to leave without meeting their delivery requirements the impact of these unfulfilled deliveries then propagates across the supply chain according to iakovou the ability to rapidly discern these types of issues is crucial to achieving resilient supply chains in the united states by taking into account the vast amount of data that is available today and by harmonizing the strategies and tactics of corporations and governmental entities we can increase our ability to detect and respond faster to problems while increasing our effective supply chain capacity he said iakovous framework is currently published in the international journal of production research the leading operations management journal and will provide a synergistic framework for the flows of information products cash and work processes to solve crises and solidify resiliency a steady flow of information and collaboration across all stakeholders of the end-to-end supply chain is what has been missing at the very core of our supply chain networks he said breaking down silos and creating a path toward the uninterrupted sharing of data will help the nation secure our manufacturing industry and better address many of the challenges and bottlenecks we are encountering in our nations supply chain network sai and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we might work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
joining the global effort to curb air pollution researchers at texas a&m university have developed computational tools to accurately assess the footprint of certain organic atmospheric pollutants their simulation described in the journal environmental science and technology could help government agencies keep a closer check on human-made sources of carbon-based pollutants human activity has led to a substantial increase in organic air pollutants like aerosols which has caused a deterioration of air quality in many places around the world and even changes in climate said dr qi ying associate professor from the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering but by gaining a better estimate of organic aerosols through specific marker compounds we can develop better emission control measures for cleaner air for all according to published reports 20-40% of the particulate matter in the lower atmosphere comes from organic aerosols air pollution contributed by these compounds is an ongoing menace that affects climate health and visibility for example depending on the type of aerosol some can change the amount of heat coming into the atmosphere while others influence the quantity of heat leaving also organic aerosols can be inhaled easily and if present in the body in high enough concentrations can worsen many health problems from asthma to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease these compounds can also reduce visibility by causing haze organic aerosols begin their journey into the atmosphere as volatile compounds that are released into the air from a variety of natural and human-made sources such as burning fossil fuels and vehicle emissions these precursor aerosols then react with oxidants and condense onto existing particles in the atmosphere to form secondary organic aerosols thus from an air quality management's perspective ying said it is necessary to know which precursors contribute to the build-up of secondary organic aerosols so that their specific sources can be curtailed the extent of certain precursor aerosols is calculated from the ratio of the abundance of a marker molecule called 2 3-dihydroxy-4-oxopentanoic acid (dhopa) to the amount of secondary organic aerosol in air samples from field experiments historically this ratio is determined using laboratory test chambers wherein very controlled atmospheric conditions are maintained however the ratio may not be suitable for use in different atmospheric conditions in the field we really don't know whether this ratio is fixed or changes in the open environment said ying in ambient air humidity temperature and other climatic factors change continuously which in turn could impact the estimates of the concentration of the secondary organic aerosols to overcome this drawback the researchers used a supercomputer at the high performance research computing facility at texas a&m to simulate the atmospheric chemistry based on the ambient conditions over east asia including china japan and korea as inputs the simulation was given information on where the emissions are coming from the emission rates and the meteorological data at different locations the simulation focused on how much secondary organic aerosols are formed from different precursors particularly the ones that contained the molecular signature dhopa upon running the simulations the research team found that the ratio varied with the ambient temperature and the levels of organic aerosols in the air they also observed that the ratio determined from previous chamber studies would lead to significant errors in the estimation of secondary organic aerosols without a correction however for regions with comparable levels of air pollution the correction for the ratio remained the same we have come a long way in reducing inorganic air pollutants but as the contribution of these compounds becomes smaller a much higher fraction of air pollution will be from organic precursors said ying we have started with dhopa as a marker for some precursor aerosols but would like to identify molecular markers for other precursors which still remains to be done other contributors to this research include doctoral student jie zhang from the civil and environmental engineering department; dr xiao he dr shuhui zhu and dr jian zhen yu from hong kong university of science and technology; dr yaqin gao dr shengao jing and dr hongli wang from shanghai academy of environmental sciences china this research is supported by the hong kong research grants council and the science and technology commission of shanghai municipality
"the use of adaptive swarm robotics has the potential to provide significant environmental and economic benefits to smart agriculture efforts globally through the implementation of autonomous ground and aerial technologies ""agricultural robots when used properly can improve product quantity and quality while lowering the cost "" said dr kiju lee associate professor and charlotte & walter buchanan faculty fellow in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university the project is led jointly by lee dr muthukma bagavathiannan in the texas a&m department of soil and crop sciences and dr juan landivar in the agrilife research and extension center at texas a&m university-corpus christi the research has been recently funded by the united states department of agriculture national institute of food and agriculture through the national robotics initiative 30 program the entire multidisciplinary group comprised of members from several texas a&m university system departments institutions and agencies is working to establish a configurable adaptive and scalable swarm (cass) system consisting of unmanned ground and aerial robots designed to assist in collaborative smart agriculture tasks ""we will develop the technical and theoretical groundwork for the deployable scalable swarm system consisting of a physical robotic swarm of both ground and aerial robots a digital twin simulator for low- and high-fidelity simulations and an easy-to-use user interface for farmers to make this cass system into use "" lee said this approach to smart agriculture enabled by the cass technology could result in long-term benefits thanks to reduced waste through better logistics optimal use of water and fertilizer and an overall reduction in the use of pesticides the research team believes that by utilizing smaller machines to reduce soil compaction and working to avoid herbicide-resistant weeds through nonchemical methods of control significant ecological and environmental benefits can be achieved recent trends in smart agriculture focused on the usage of large machinery have had the objective of maximizing product quantity and minimizing costs an approach that has resulted in some economic and environmental concerns lee said issues including soil compaction a limited ability to address small-scale field variability and reduced crop productivity are some of the long-term issues that have emerged from this approach by leveraging the flexibility of swarm robotics the cass system is intended to become a platform technology that can be configured to meet application-specific needs ""current trends in precision agriculture and smart farming mostly focus on larger machinery or a single or a small number of robots equipped and programmed to perform highly specialized tasks "" lee said ""this project will serve as a critical pathway toward our long-term goal of establishing a deployable easy-to-use swarm robotic system that can serve as a universal platform for broad agriculture applications"" although other systems employing swarm robotics exist they are typically designed to perform just one specific task rather than being adaptable to a variety of situations moving forward the team will have the opportunity to address several challenges related to the complex and varying scale of agriculture applications through the design and implementation process of their system ""despite the great potential swarm robotics research itself has been largely confined to low-fidelity simulations and laboratory experiments "" lee said ""these rarely represent the intricacies of an agricultural field environment also human-swarm collaboration has not been extensively explored and user-in-the-loop development and evaluation approaches are needed in particular for the target end-users in our case farmers"" other investigators on the team include dr john cason in texas a&m agrilife research dr robert hardin in the department of biological and agricultural engineering dr luis tedeschi in the department of animal science and texas a&m agrilife research dr dugan um in the texas a&m-corpus christi department of mechanical engineering and dr mahendra bhandari in texas a&m agrilife research"
"dr jeyavijayan ""jv"" rajendran assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2021 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) ceda kuh early career award for his contributions to secure and trustworthy integrated circuits in the field of electronic design automation the award which is the highest honor for young faculty in the field of electronic design automation was presented at the 2021 international conference on computer-aided design held in munich germany on nov 5 each year the ieee ceda ernest s kuh early career award honors one individual who has made innovative and substantial technical contributions to the area of electronic design automation in the early stages of his or her career (within eight years of getting the highest educational degree) the award is named in honor of the late ernest s kuh who made pioneering contributions to circuit theory electronic design automation and engineering education"
i feel honored and humbled and feel grateful to the students mentors colleagues and staff in the department and the college at large rajendran said the hardware security community has been particularly kind and very helpful to young academics – be it the faculty working on the same research problem at a different university or program managers they always have provided me with great feedback to shape my research though my name is on the award i believe it belongs to the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m and the hardware security community rajendrans research interests are in hardware security with a specific focus on supply chain vulnerabilities and bug detection his research has won many awards such as the national science foundation faculty early career development award the association for computing machinery's special interest group on design automation outstanding young faculty award and the texas a&m engineering experiment stations genesis award for multidisciplinary research
dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering is among the 20 exceptional texas a&m university faculty honored as 2021 presidential impact fellows the award recognizes rising stars in their respective fields who embody the universitys commitment to advancing knowledge through transformational learning discovery innovation and impact for texas and the world gaharwar received his phd in biomedical engineering from purdue university and completed his postdoctoral training from the massachusetts institute of technology and harvard university since joining texas a&m in 2013 gaharwar has performed impactful leading-edge research at the interface of materials science biomedical engineering and cell biology he has pioneered novel ideas and developed new nanomaterials that have and will continue to shape the field of biomaterials gaharwar is a prolific young researcher in the field of bioengineering he has edited multiple books/journal special issues and is an author on almost 130 peer-reviewed journal articles editorials and review papers and five book chapters he also has submitted five patent/disclosure applications his work has been published in leading journals and routinely highlighted in international media gaharwar has made a lasting impact in various areas of research as evident by the high number of citations more than 10 000 his manuscripts have received he has received funding from the national institutes of health (nih) the national science foundation and the department of defense recently gaharwar was named associate editor for the leading biomaterials journal acs applied materials and interfaces which serves the interdisciplinary community of chemists engineers physicists and biologists focusing on newly discovered materials and interfacial processes gaharwars interdisciplinary research has been recognized with over 30 major national and international awards including the prestigious nih director's new innovator award the dean of engineering excellence award the texas a&m engineering experiment station research impact award the cellular and molecular bioengineering (cmbe)-biomedical engineering society rising star award the cmbe young innovator award and the dimitris chorafas foundation award for the full list of winners visit this linked article from the texas a&m college of engineering
the department of defense (dod) has awarded the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) a grant to establish the texas defense aerospace manufacturing community (tdamc) this four-year program will inject targeted smart manufacturing skills and technologies into texas diverse aerospace manufacturing portfolio to support defense aerospace manufacturing needs and affiliated supply chains across the state the texas a&m engineering experiment station is an ideal gateway for the department of defense said dr cindy lawley associate agency director for tees workforce development we offer a comprehensive and highly leveraged approach to reach deeply into the nations leading aerospace defense manufacturing ecosystem by activating the defense aerospace manufacturing community across the texas triangle (the region consisting of the dallas-fort worth houston san antonio and austin metropolitan areas) as well as counties within 75 miles of the gulf coast and rio grande valley tdamc aims to infuse smart manufacturing tools and processes into the region in order to solidify texas leadership role in a global manufacturing economy tees will lead tdamc through the secureamerica institute (sai) which will empower economic development corporations industry and academia partners to engage regional communities in texas to chart a path forward that will continue to position texas as a leader in manufacturing the texas a&m engineering extension service known for workforce training and professional development will also collaborate with tees sai and texas a&m engineering the secureamerica institute is extremely fortunate in our opportunity to support department of defense manufacturing objectives said rob gorham sai executive director facilitating the growth of a smart manufacturing ecosystem for the texas aerospace industry will have long-lasting positive impacts for our nation
new research from texas a&m university scientists could help in boosting the efficiency of nuclear power plants in the near future by using a combination of physics-based modeling and advanced simulations they found the key underlying factors that cause radiation damage to nuclear reactors which could then provide insight into designing more radiation-tolerant high-performance materials reactors need to run at either higher power or use fuels longer to increase their performance but then at these settings the risk of wear and tear also increases said dr karim ahmed assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering so there is a pressing need to come up with better reactor designs and a way to achieve this goal is by optimizing the materials used to build the nuclear reactors the results of the study are published in the journal frontiers in materials according to the department of energy nuclear energy surpasses all other natural resources in power output and accounts for 20% of the united states electricity generation the source of nuclear energy is fission reactions wherein an isotope of uranium splits into daughter elements after a hit from fast-moving neutrons these reactions generate enormous heat so nuclear reactors parts particularly the pumps and pipes are made with materials possessing exceptional strength and resistance to corrosion however fission reactions also produce intense radiation that causes a deterioration in the nuclear reactors structural materials at the atomic level when energetic radiation infiltrates these materials it can either knock off atoms from their locations causing point defects or force atoms to take vacant spots forming interstitial defects both these imperfections disrupt the regular arrangement of atoms within the metal crystal structure and then what starts as tiny imperfections grow to form voids and dislocation loops compromising the materials mechanical properties over time while there is some understanding of the type of defects that occur in these materials upon radiation exposure ahmed said it has been arduous to model how radiation along with other factors such as the temperature of the reactor and the microstructure of the material together contribute to the formation defects and their growth the challenge is the computational cost he said in the past simulations have been limited to specific materials and for regions spanning a few microns across but if the domain size is increased to even 10s of microns the computational load drastically jumps in particular the researchers said to accommodate larger domain sizes previous studies have compromised on the number of parameters within the simulations differential equations however an undesirable consequence of ignoring some parameters over others is an inaccurate description of the radiation damage to overcome these limitations ahmed and his team designed their simulation with all the parameters making no assumptions on whether one of them was more pertinent than the other also to perform the now computationally heavy tasks they used the resources provided by the texas a&m high performance research computing group upon running the simulation their analysis revealed that using all parameters in nonlinear combinations yields an accurate description of radiation damage in particular in addition to the materials microstructure the radiation condition within the reactor the reactor design and temperature are also important in predicting the instability in materials due to radiation on the other hand the researchers work also sheds light on why specialized nanomaterials are more tolerant to voids and dislocation loops they found that instabilities are only triggered when the border enclosing clusters of co-oriented atomic crystals or grain boundary is above a critical size so nanomaterials with their extremely fine grain sizes suppress instabilities thereby becoming more radiation-tolerant although ours is a fundamental theoretical and modeling study we think it will help the nuclear community to optimize materials for different types of nuclear energy applications especially new materials for reactors that are safer more efficient and economical said ahmed this progress will eventually increase our clean carbon-free energy contribution dr abdurrahman ozturk a research assistant in the nuclear engineering department is the lead author of this work merve gencturk a graduate student in the nuclear engineering department also contributed to this research
dr dinakar sagapuram assistant professor in the wm michael barnes ‘64 department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been named a 2021 breakthrough energy fellow for his work on clean energy manufacturing technologies sagapuram will lead the research with his colleague and co-investigator dr prabhakar pagilla professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and associate dean for research in the texas a&m college of engineering to develop their new strip steel manufacturing technology called metpeel to reduce emissions in one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize steel founded by bill gates breakthrough energy (be) is committed to supporting the development and adoption of breakthrough clean technologies the world needs to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 be fellows is their latest program specifically designed to provide researchers with funding mentorship education and access to the be network with the aim to accelerate new technologies from early development to widespread deployment the 2021 inaugural be fellows cohort consists of researchers from leading research institutions in north america europe and new zealand working in steel cement hydrogen fertilizer and electrofuels the projects and fellows were selected through an extremely competitive application process from across the globe sagapuram is one of the only 17 fellows selected this year and the only one working in steel the iron and steel sector is the largest industrial emitter of carbon dioxide the primary driver of climate change according to the world steel association almost two tons of carbon dioxide are emitted for every ton of steel produced making the steel industry responsible for about 4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year or 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions the significant amount of energy needed to convert raw iron ore into final useful steel is the reason why steel manufacturing is so carbon-intensive for example the principal route to shape cast steel ingots into final products is rolling a complex multistep process where large thickness reductions are achieved in small increments through several hot and cold rolling steps this process requires repeated high-temperature heating (as in thousands of degrees fahrenheit) and cooling of the material as it passes through multiple rollers and nearly 85% of the energy is obtained by burning fossil fuels which results in direct carbon emissions the researchers who are part of the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) created technology that reimagines how a steel strip is manufactured metpeel disrupts the traditional rolling-based manufacturing processes by producing steel strips through a more efficient single-step process the process involves machining a thin continuous metal strip from the circumference of a rotating feedstock using a sharp cutting tool similar to how wood veneer is produced
the primary advantage of metpeel is that the shape change from bulk material to thin strip is accomplished in just one deformation step this lowers energy usage significantly moreover the process reduces the need for external heating and therefore could be operated using electricity alone which eliminates the need for fossil fuels this one-step process for transforming raw material into a final strip product is clean and significantly more efficient than the current greenhouse gas-emitting technologies im honored to be selected as a be fellow and to be joining this impressive cohort said sagapuram who joined texas a&m in 2016 following his phd and postdoctoral work at purdue currently most of the decarbonization efforts in steel focus primarily on ironmaking and steelmaking processes where different clean sources like hydrogen electricity and biomass are being explored as alternative reductants or fuel in place of coal but the practice of shaping cast steel into a thin sheet via multiple deformation steps using rolling has not changed all that much over the last 100 years although rolling is known to be one of the most energy-intensive processes metpeel disrupts this paradigm by enabling strip production in far fewer steps and within a compact physical footprint said sagapuram this directly translates to energy efficiency and lower cost the benefits are tremendous especially for thinner strips this is because in contrast to rolling where specific energy (energy per unit kg) and cost increase exponentially as the strip gets thinner energy consumption in our process is independent of thickness the built-in advantage of being less expensive than conventional technology sets metpeel apart from other clean energy technologies most current clean technology solutions that can replace existing high-emission technologies incur an additional cost the green premium said pagilla metpeel eliminates the green premium for steel it is not only a clean technology alternative to steel strip rolling but it also costs less which essentially means it has a ‘negative green premium
"the teams research at the lab-scale has revealed yet another attractive feature of the process the ability to precisely control the internal grain structure of the sheet which is typically difficult to achieve using rolling therefore the strip can even be made with superior quality and mechanical properties compared to conventional rolled steel although the technology can be applied to manufacture virtually any metal with better properties and at lower energy steel is our initial target because of its widespread use and significant potential for impact sagapuram said the breakthrough energy fellows program identifies and supports the best and brightest individuals and teams across the globe working to develop scale and commercialize technologies that have the potential to reduce carbon emissions by at least 500 million tons per year by 2050 said ashley grosh vice president of breakthrough energy fellows were thrilled to support metpeels critical work to decarbonize steel production and help reimagine our sustainable future as part of the be fellows program the team will work toward process scaling and developing control tools needed for widespread adoption while quantifying the emissions and energy-reduction potential of the technology the breakthrough energy fellows program is attractive and unique pagilla said it not only supplies financial resources to rapidly develop the technology but it also provides the support structure through its vast network of business connections and business fellows to create accelerated pathways for transitioning the technology to market intellectual property creation and protection is crucial in developing this cutting-edge technology to realize its true impact said dr saurabh biswas executive director for tees commercialization and entrepreneurship his team is working closely with the tees clean energy incubator to support patent capture and utilization for metpeel the project will also be supported by the secureamerica institute a tees-led private-public partnership focused on advanced manufacturing by providing adequate space to host metpeel machinery in their new facility at the rellis campus as well as necessary resources and industry connections metpeel represents the best of tees abilities to solve real problems for industry and society said dr dimitris lagoudas deputy director for tees beyond technology development tees will directly support the development and use of this groundbreaking new manufacturing process through commercialization and product development assistance test facilities market identification and logistics we look forward to the day metpeel drastically reduces carbon emissions while creating new opportunities and jobs for american industries"""
four members of the college of engineering were among 20 distinguished texas a&m university faculty named 2021 presidential impact fellows the recognitions highlight texas a&ms commitment to investing in faculty with significant and sustained accomplishments and the promise of continued high-impact scholarship those named fellows were dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering; dr shuiwang ji professor in the department of computer science and engineering; dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes ‘64 department of industrial and systems engineering; and dr emily pentzer associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering the fifth class of presidential impact fellows joins more than 75 colleagues recognized in prior years with one of the most prestigious scholarly impact awards presented to texas a&m faculty the award was initiated by president michael k young to recognize rising stars in their respective fields and those who embody the universitys commitment to advancing knowledge through transformational learning discovery innovation and impact for texas and the world presidential impact fellows receive an annual stipend of $25 000 for three years and retain their new title for life so long as they remain a faculty member in good standing these award recipients were identified by their college and dean and confirmed by academic leadership each is considered to be worthy of increasingly prestigious national and international professional recognition the 2020 presidential impact fellows in the college of engineering were dr james caverlee professor in the department of computer science and engineering and dr le xie professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering for a complete list of these and other internal faculty award recipients from previous years visit the dean of faculties website
dr cynthia hipwell from the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university recently received the 2021 robert henry thurston lecture award from the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) established in 1925 this prestigious award provides an outstanding leader in pure or applied science or engineering with the honor of presenting to asme a lecture on a subject of broad interest to engineers she will present heat-assisted magnetic recording (hamr): a nanoscale heat transfer adventure to the society on jan 21 2022 i am excited to share the story of heat-assisted magnetic recording technology with the next generation of mechanical engineers said hipwell my advisor chang-lin tien presented the thurston lecture in 1993 encouraging the mechanical engineering community to ‘go to extremes and explore the new area of nanoscale heat transfer it is a huge honor and extremely meaningful for me to be presenting this lecture 28 years later about a technology made possible by the very nanoscale heat-transfer research that he encouraged us to pursue hipwell is a member of the national academy of engineering the national academy of inventors and the academy of medicine engineering and science of texas she is a technology and business process innovator with more than 20 years of experience leading engineering research and product development hipwell is known for establishing new business processes and an organizational culture that focuses on developing innovative solutions from root cause understanding improved pace of learning and discipline in experimentation her research interests include nanoscale energy transport and tribology of small-scale devices surface interface physics and sensors and actuators for haptic and human/machine interfaces and innovation business processes
over the past year there has been a sharp increase in cyberattacks using malware to target the systems of critical infrastructure such as utility companies government agencies and organizations that provide services and products that we rely on daily according to a report from the cybersecurity firm checkpoint software in the first half of this year there was a 102% increase in these types of attacks compared to 2020 one of the biggest this year was the ransomware attack on the colonial pipeline where hackers gained control of the control room computers and demanded a $44 million payment before they would return the system back over to the company the colonial pipeline supplies about 45% of the east coasts oil and diesel fuel supply and they were offline for several days due to the attack this not only impacted the companys bottom line but it also affected consumers as a major fuel supplier went offline for several days if that wasnt bad enough it was recently announced that the company had to notify employees that their personal data may have also been compromised during the attack a few weeks later global meat supplier jbs foods paid an $11 million ransom after an attack that caused them to temporality suspend meat processing at their plants as a result there was an uptick in beef and pork prices in years past a lot of internet attacks were done for fun but these days they are all for profit said dr guofei gu professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university the most popular and profitable type that we see nowadays is ransomware ransomware is an advanced type of malware that installs itself onto a users machine or device undetected encrypts their data files rendering them inaccessible and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them but even if the ransom is paid the decryption process to get the files back to normal is a slow one these groups will put several locks on the data said dr dilma da silva professor and holder of the ford motor company design professorship in the department while you may be able to get through them all with the key that they give you it is going to take the computer a long time to get through them all and theres always a possibility they will leave an extra hack behind for themselves or to sell to other cybercriminal groups cybercrime is a growing business the fbi reported that in 2020 despite most of the country being focused on the covid-19 pandemic they received a record number of complaints about cybercrimes which cost americans about $42 billion in losses cybersecurity ventures predicts that by 2025 that number could grow to $105 trillion per year worldwide what is malware malware is an umbrella term for any malicious software such as viruses worms and spyware that is intentionally designed to cause harm or damage computers computer systems devices and networks it can get into a system through various methods including email attachments infected applications and usb drives phishing emails text messages and malicious advertisements recent malware attacks have a couple of new features that set them apart from past attacks the first is that the malware is a sophisticated software written by highly skilled professionals it explores a computers software vulnerabilities that even the owner of the system has not discovered the second new feature is that these professional groups have begun targeting more profitable victims one of the nations most vital infrastructure systems utilities are among the most vulnerable to cyberattacks many large utility companies run on very old systems and software and have highly constrained resources the reason why these out-of-date platforms are still in use is because they were created to perform specific tasks and they still work when a vulnerability is found updating the system it is not a simple process in addition if one element of it is changed then it can affect other parts of it in unpredictable ways and result in more issues they are also not able to run additional software alongside it to protect it better protecting critical infrastructure systems when it comes down to developing solutions to improve the strength of these systems to protect from future cyberattacks there is a dilemma unlike the computer systems that we use every day like windows or linux many of these critical infrastructure systems are highly closed to outsiders including cybersecurity experts on the one side these organizations want their systems to be secure but at the same time they are not able to achieve the level of security they need said gu they either cannot use existing solutions or they are unwilling to open their systems for experts to assess for possible vulnerabilities while there may be good reasons to keep the details of their systems hidden it makes collaborating with security experts who want to help difficult to help improve communications between these organizations and cybersecurity experts gu suggests that the solution could be designing these systems to be more open a lot of the time an open design is actually more secure because a lot of experts will be able to analyze it he said if they are not able to find any problems or break them it typically means that the systems security is good its all about finding a good balance between openness and security cybersecurity research at texas a&m texas a&m is one of only a handful of colleges and universities in the nation designated as a center for academic excellence in all three national security agency focus areas: cyberoperations cyberdefense and research da silvas work which is funded by the national security agency centers around making computer systems more suitable for security work it is essentially about the computational power to be able to process data very quickly said da silva when there is a lot of data coming into a system at a rapid pace the system needs to be able to consume that data very quickly and run algorithms that run closer to where the data is produced were really refining and specializing the things that google and facebook for instance use to process a lot of data but for cybersecurity specifically gus research is focused on achieving defense in depth which is a security approach that utilizes several layers of defense mechanisms that are thoughtfully placed throughout a computer network to protect the valuable data within it from a variety of threats in the event that a mechanism fails then another will immediately step up to stop the attack weve done a lot of work in terms of how we can proactively prevent detect and recover from cyberattacks said gu for example we built a system to detect new vulnerabilities inside a computer systems software that needs to be fixed before a cybercriminal could get in and explore the system as cybersecurity is virtually its own ecosystem that covers a lot of different aspects of our society a wide breadth of expertise is needed to cover them all the texas a&m cybersecurity center is building a strong team of faculty and students that work on various aspects of security such as in the internet of things cloud computing blockchain and software
dr rodney bowersox from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university received the regents professor designation from the texas a&m university system board of regents established in 1996 the regents professor title honors individuals at the rank of professor or equivalent whose distinguished performance in teaching research and service has been exemplary it is the highest honor bestowed by the system on faculty members its difficult to find the words to express how deeply honored and grateful i am to chancellor sharp the board of regents and texas a&m university for this award said bowersox during my tenure at texas a&m i have been truly blessed by unwavering support outstanding collaborations with colleagues and most importantly very brilliant students bowersox is a professor in the aerospace engineering department and an associate dean for research he is the holder of the ford motor co design professorship i and is the founder and director of the texas a&m university national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory his research focuses on theoretical and experimental hypersonic viscous flows (turbulent and transitional) nonequilibrium gas dynamics turbulence modeling laser diagnostics high-speed aerodynamics sonic boom and scramjet flows bowersox received his doctoral masters and bachelors degrees from virginia polytechnic institute and state university­­ he is a department of defense vannevar bush faculty fellow a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers and a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics
researchers from the university of texas at arlington and texas a&m university have received a three-year $500 000 grant from the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) to conduct experiments and simulations of liquid metal heat pipes (lmhps) for micro nuclear reactors the microreactor is a compact nuclear reactor design generating up to 20 megawatts of thermal energy that can be converted into electricity or used for a wide range of industrial applications including hydrogen production most microreactors are designed to be portable; many are small enough to be transported by a semitractor-trailer or cargo plane microreactors could be deployed across the state and nation where energy shortages occur one such case happened in february 2021 when a massive winter storm hit texas causing millions to lose electricity and heat dereje agonafer ut arlington presidential distinguished professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering and yassin a hassan texas a&m distinguished professor and regents professor in the department of nuclear engineering and the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering are leading the project agonafer and hassan are members of the national academy of engineering the only two professors from texas to be inducted in 2019 microreactors can make an effective use of liquid metal heat pipe to transport heat from the nuclear core to the secondary system agonafer said one of his major research areas is in the design modeling and cooling of electronic devices everything from computer chips to computer servers the team at ut arlington will actively be involved in both the fabrication and modeling of lmhps the ut arlington and texas a&m teams will produce unique sets of experimental data of internal thermal-hydraulic parameters using advanced measurements techniques quantifying any measurement uncertainties the datasets will address any technological gaps and could be used to develop physical models ultimately advancing the predictive capabilities of computational fluid dynamics codes and fast-running system codes adopted for heat pipe reactor technologies hassan leads the center for advanced small modular and micro reactors which focuses on developing and deploying advanced technologies for safer reliable sustainable clean energy we want to solve some of the challenges texans have faced on the energy front the center looks at various forms of energy to help the growing state needs for future demands hassan said our students are innovating today what will impact tomorrows global society with advancements in sustainability safety and health the project aligns with the federal governments recent decision to fund nuclear energy technology with billions of dollars as well as the white houses broader aim of setting a net-zero emissions goal by 2050 we believe this research has opportunities down the road to expand because of the countrys movement toward all types of more sustainable energy agonafer said this story originally appeared on the ut arlington website
dr cindy lawley was among the top executives in texas state agencies and universities selected for the governors executive development program (gedp) the intensive educational program with three week-long sessions held october through december is organized around four key areas: organizational strategy infrastructure management resource management and personal effectiveness it was a privilege to represent texas a&m engineering at the gedp and network with other leaders from across texas said lawley throughout the program i sharpened my leadership skills engaged in evaluation and feedback sessions and developed strategies to implement that will help lead tees into the future especially within the context of applied researchlawley first joined the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in 2014 as the director of strategic initiatives today she is the assistant vice chancellor for academic and outreach programs as well as the associate agency director for workforce development and an assistant dean for engineering academies she leads tees workforce development in its mission to support the states workforce through education and training which is accomplished with programs and initiatives for those in pk-12 settings through professional and continuing education opportunities for those already in the workforcedr lawleys career at tees began with an appointment to help chart the strategic direction of the agency said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor for engineering the texas a&m university system and interim director of tees in nominating lawley for the program as someone who excels in casting a vision and then working toward it she continues to lead her team with an eye on the always-growing always-relevant strategic vision of the agency at the forefront of every endeavor is her concern for the citizens of texas and how the tees workforce development team can better serve them throughout the entirety of their liveseach year the governor of texas sends requests for nominations to state agencies and universities upon receiving nominations the gedp selects participants like lawley committed to dedicating the time and effort to enhancing their leadership capacity as part of the program lawley used on-the-job issues and challenges to develop a leadership plan for applying the new ideas concepts and behaviors explored during the gedp the gedp held its charter class in 1985 to date there are more than 1 900 graduates of the program representing more than 100 texas state agencies
over 30 million people in the united states have diabetes approximately 105% of the countrys population with 15 million new diagnoses made each year and an estimated annual cost exceeding $300 billion because of the acute and severe consequences of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) the fear of it often leads to less aggressive insulin therapy ultimately increasing the long-term exposure of hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) in order to optimize the management of diabetes the long-term risks associated with hyperglycemia must be balanced with the risks for hypoglycemia dr madhav erraguntla associate professor of practice in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and dr balakrishna haridas professor of practice in the department of biomedical engineering are working to develop a prediction model for hypoglycemic events that has a low false-alert rate is highly sensitive and specific and can be applied to new patients and to new time periods the main motivation for this research is to explore ways to further improve predictive performance of hypoglycemia to reduce the rate of false alarms early detection of impending hypoglycemic events based on continuous glucose monitoring (cgm) readings with high sensitivity and specificity and low false alarm rates can help patients with diabetes better manage hypoglycemia and their overall health erraguntla said the accurate hypoglycemia alerts proposed by the team will allow patients to better manage diabetes by reducing the fear of hypoglycemia the research was performed on de-identified retrospective data ie data already in existence the research team obtained cgm datasets from 110 pediatric patients with type 1 diabetes over the course of 30 to 90 days the data was comprised of over 16 million cgm values under normal living conditions and analyzed using machine-learning algorithms instead of focusing on all hypoglycemic events the team focused on sustained hypoglycemic events defined as glucose values less than 70 mg/deciliter for at least 15 minutes focusing on persistent events rather than transient events led to better model performance in prior research the team developed a machine learning algorithm that detects hypoglycemia 30 minutes in advance using cgm readings the team was able to achieve sensitivity (true positive rate) and specificity rates (true negative rate) of more than 90% accuracy however due to a small number of hypoglycemic events compared with non-hypoglycemic events even this relatively high sensitivity and specificity can lead to false-alert rates of around 80% which can result in patients taking unnecessary actions to avoid hypoglycemia improving specificity in such highly imbalanced situations will reduce the false-alert rate and therefore improve user experience and trust in the alerts the machine-learning model ultimately developed accurately predicted sustained events with more than 97% sensitivity and specificity for time frames of both 30 and 60 minutes into the future the false-alert rate was kept to less than 25% compared to around 80% when focused on all hypoglycemic events in other words only one out of four alerts are potentially false compared to four out of five alerts being false before an additional benefit is that while the model focused on sustained hypoglycemic events more than 61% of the transient hypoglycemic events are still detected as false positives by the model the results of this research take us one more step closer to effectively managing diabetes and the huge burden it places on our health care erraguntla said
"dr jodie l lutkenhaus professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is the recipient of the 2022 edith and peter odonnell award in engineering from the academy of medicine engineering and science of texas (tamest) she was chosen for her innovation and development of redox-active polymers for metal-free energy storage and smart coatings the edith and peter odonnell awards annually recognize rising texas researchers who are addressing the essential role that science and technology play in society and whose work meets the highest standards of exemplary professional performance creativity and resourcefulness lutkenhaus is receiving this award alongside dr sarbajit banerjee professor in the department of chemistry who is the recipient of the 2022 edith and peter odonnell award in science by developing new molecular-scale characterization methods lutkenhaus discovered fundamental connections among polymer dynamics properties and performance specifically through the use of electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring she developed new ways to closely observe the response of polymers in some of the most challenging environments in 2021 she and her collaborator dr karen wooley professor in the department of chemistry demonstrated the world's first biodegradable peptide battery these types of discoveries have led to new designs for metal-free organic batteries that will address societys needs for materials that are earth-abundant and recyclable or degradable her concept of a 100% polymer battery which would steer battery production away from cobalt and other precious metals has the potential to charge and discharge much faster than traditional versions imagine a battery you never have to throw away one that does not depend on precious metals to work and charges more efficiently than conventional methods said nominator dr mark a barteau professor in the chemical engineering department this rapid charging technology could dramatically change the way batteries are developed and how things like electric vehicles are used today we are just astounded at the ingenuity and innovation dr lutkenhaus shows on a daily basis and are thankful to have her leadership here at texas a&m mentoring the next generation of groundbreaking researchers"" lutkenhaus is one of four texas-based researchers receiving the tamest awards each are chosen for their individual contributions addressing the essential role that science and technology play in society and whose work meets the highest standards of exemplary professional performance creativity and resourcefulness dr lutkenhaus and her team of multidisciplinary researchers are transforming the way we look at the future of batteries and energy storage said dr david e daniel tamest board president we are honored to award her with the 2022 edith and peter odonnell award in engineering for opening up a whole new metal-free world of powered wearable implantable electric devices and more we cant wait to see what reusable and even sprayable batteries will enter the market in the next 10 years thanks to her research lutkenhaus will be recognized at the 2022 edith and peter odonnell awards ceremony on jan 12 2022 and will give a presentation on her research preceding the award ceremony at the tamest 2022 annual conference forward texas imperatives for health in san antonio at the westin riverwalk hotel"
with an impressive capability of drinking up to three times their body weight in a single blood meal mosquitoes are formidable parasites but to reach adulthood mosquitoes need to be raised in environments where the temperatures are conducive to their breeding growth and development in a new study in the journal scientific reports texas a&m university researchers have developed a mathematical model based on machine learning to precisely predict the local or microclimatic temperature within the breeding grounds of the aedes albopictus mosquitoes carriers of the chikungunya and dengue viruses their algorithm also reveals that even in winter the temperature may be warm enough in certain breeding grounds to allow mosquitoes to grow and thrive our goal is to develop accurate and automated mathematical models for estimating microclimatic temperature which can greatly facilitate a quick assessment of mosquito populations and consequently vector-borne disease transmission said dr madhav erraguntla associate professor of practice in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering responsible for around a million deaths globally mosquitoes continue to wreak havoc to public health in many parts of the world in addition to water temperature plays a critical role at different stages in mosquitoes life cycle furthermore the mosquitoes development reproduction and survival can be mathematically modeled on the basis of temperature past studies have largely relied on ambient temperature or general air temperature to make predictions about mosquito populations however these calculations have not been precise since ambient temperatures can deviate from those within mosquito breeding grounds recognizing this shortcoming scientists rely on sensors called data loggers to continually keep track of the temperature light intensity and humidity within breeding grounds despite their advantages these sensors are inconvenient due to their cost and long-term use people have realized that the microclimatic conditions are important but right now data loggers are the only way to keep track of temperature said erraguntla we wanted to address this gap by automating the process of estimating microclimatic temperatures so that we can model the life cycle of mosquitoes accurately for their experiments the researchers placed sensors in common mosquito breeding grounds around houston texas including storm drains shaded areas and inside water meters in addition they obtained information on ambient temperatures from the national oceanic and atmospheric administration repository with this data as training input to a machine learning algorithm the computer model could predict the microclimatic temperatures for a variety of ambient temperatures and breeding grounds within 15 degrees centigrade further the model now could even forecast microclimatic temperatures for any ambient temperature precluding the need for sensors next they fed the values of the microclimatic temperatures to another mathematical model called the population dynamic model that tracks the life cycle of the mosquitoes based on the microclimatic temperature and other parameters the population dynamic model could estimate the populations at different stages in the lifecycle including eggs larvae pupae and adult aedes albopictus mosquitoes the model also revealed that the insulated conditions of the storm drains could result in the survival of 84% of juveniles and eggs and 96% of adults during the winter months a time of the year when mosquitoes are assumed to be dormant although their climatic temperature prediction model has a high degree of accuracy the researchers noted that additional research is needed to affirm if their model is applicable to places outside of texas our work automates the prediction of microclimatic conditions bypassing an otherwise expensive and time-consuming process of placing the sensors in different breeding spots collecting the sensor data and analyzing it said erraguntla from a public health context this work will help epidemiologists better track mosquito-borne disease transmission and surges in mosquito abundances other contributors to this research include darpit dave josef zapletal and mark lawley from the industrial and systems engineering department; and kevin myles zach adelman and tyler pohlenz from the department of entomology at texas a&m
is it possible to smell covid-19 the secureamerica institute (sai) and the texas a&m university system collaborated with worlds enterprises inc and the us air force to answer that question last november with the worlds protect breathalyzer kiosk which uses artificial intelligence to smell or detect covid-19 on an exhaled breath the next step is to make this technology even more accessible with funding from the us navy sai plans to explore different ways to ruggedize the worlds protect kiosk so that the technology can be robust enough to function in harsh environments military deployed in regions that are hot and dry or even on ships dealing with the constant jostling motions caused by the ocean must be able to rely on these devices to work correctly the kiosk might not look like a kiosk anymore said chris holshouser sai director of applied programs and strategic partnerships we have to be able to accommodate sand salt and different conditions that the new sensor package is going to be exposed to so that means were looking at options such as miniaturization to deploy the technology so it can survive and function as if it were in a controlled environment miniaturization will expand where and how the worlds protect technology can be embedded such as right into military helmets this opens a path forward to incorporating covid-19 detection technology into wearables or even handheld metabolic breath systems dr david staack associate professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university collaborated with worlds enterprises inc to develop the original kiosk prototype which requires a person to use a disposable straw to blow into a copper inlet in less than a minute test results with accuracy comparable to a polymerase chain reaction (pcr) test can be sent to someones smartphone before the delta variant we started to think there was no longer a demand or urgency for our technology said holshouser but with delta and now omicron weve realized the need for this technology is not slowing down we need the ability to rapidly screen and you dont get any faster than this although the sai team is deconstructing the original worlds protect prototype to create more accessible versions of it such as a version for use in heating ventilation and air conditioning (hvac) systems the kiosk still has its uses particularly because it produces results as accurate as the well-known pcr tests as a result sai is working with elbit systems to further commercialize it for use in places where people congregate such as college campuses and amusement parks the technology might also eventually be used to detect things beyond covid-19 such as the flu or other health indicators like fatigue this technology is a game changer and demonstrates the secureamerica institutes commitment to fast forwarding the lab-to-commercialization process said rob gorham sai executive director the public-private model has once again proven to be successful in optimizing team dynamics to make this a reality in 2022 sai is opening a new facility on the rellis campus where they will continue the important work of finding innovative solutions to new questions and problems
if youre interested in forming a strategic partnership or wish to work together to solve the next rapid production challenge reach out to chris holshouser at cholshouser@tamuedu
the digital era has transformed the future of manufacturing in texas and across the nation stressing a need to embed emerging smart technologies like advanced robotics and augmented reality into areas such as defense manufacturing recently members of the texas a&m university system formed a consortium with numerous partners to help meet this need and place texas at the forefront of aerospace manufacturing in 2020 the department of defense (dod) created the defense manufacturing community (dmc) support program by the office of local defense community cooperation to support consortiums as defense manufacturing communities that strengthen the national security industrial base through this program the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) was one of five teams awarded grants totaling about $25 million for the second round in 2021 their grant supports a $6 947 453 project to establish the texas defense aerospace manufacturing community (tdamc) tees will lead this four-year program through the secureamerica institute (sai) the institute will inject targeted smart manufacturing skills and technologies into the diverse manufacturing portfolio of the texas defense aerospace manufacturing ecosystem the goal is to deliver outcomes in the areas of workforce development structured networking and supply chain development policy and economic development and research and infrastructure we were looking to do something where we could serve as a state agency and use our convening power to try to grow manufacturing initiatives and identify new customers new opportunities new programming things that were less traditional college-type projects said rob gorham sai executive director not just looking at how to make the manufacturing process better but how to make manufacturing as an industry better the national association of manufacturers says for every $1 spent in manufacturing $279 is returned back to the economy gorham said this shows how much of an economic driver it is the future of manufacturing especially aerospace manufacturing that texas leads by a large margin is going to depend on these next-generation technologies for this project gorham and sai teamed up with the texas a&m engineering extension service known for workforce training and professional development to form a collaboration with tees workforce development texas a&m engineering and numerous other partners throughout texas the brazos valley economic development corporation (bvedc) was a co-applicant for the grant and will serve as a community partner of tees the bvedc will organize and manage various regionalization activities and interact with local economic development organizations from across the state to support the tdamc leveraging the assets of those communities to assist in awareness talent and business retention and expansion partnerships between state institutions and economic development organizations can prove extremely productive and partnering with tees from our communitys standpoint will enhance efforts for the defense and aerospace industries said matt prochaska bvedc president and ceo this is an example of how were building an ecosystem to serve an industry and increase our states competitiveness gorham said they looked for a region involved in industry that included demographics with different variables where they could deploy the smart manufacturing for this they chose the texas triangle (the region consisting of the dallas-fort worth houston san antonio and austin metropolitan areas) and the gulf coast 75 miles inward all the way down to the rio grande valley here the tdamc aims to infuse smart manufacturing tools and processes into the region to solidify texas leadership role in the global aerospace manufacturing economy and beyond currently there are only 11 of these dod dmc designations in the nation including the one with tees which is the only one in texas gorham said this designation could also open up the state to many other opportunities now and in the future because of the designation it's putting us in competitive positions for new programming coming out of the federal government he said it's also allowing us to use our designation as proof that we have the capability at tees to reach into different regions across the state and to start working on some of these mission-driven needs that we have at a state level at this early stage the consortium team is working on a handful of deliverables to provide to the dod including a detailed execution plan they have created a 10-step plan with specific tasks to accomplish tdamc objectives across the three phases: initialize develop and deploy and refine and scale to help with this plan they will create a threat-casting exercise where they project the state of texas and the specified region 10 years into the future trying to imagine what things like energy transportation and aerospace manufacturing will look like aerospace is our topic so that'll be what we're most focused on gorham said and from there well start to identify existing gaps that are going to depend on the adoption of smart manufacturing for us to be able to realize a future that we're defining so that's going to be an awesome opportunity for us to really project and help the community get to that future state in a successful way gorham said the program would continue to position texas as a leader in manufacturing especially in aerospace instead of trying to chip away at adoption of these next-generation technologies at the individual company level it will bring manufacturers together to understand what standards and technical gaps exist and economic considerations that need to be thought through in the end gorham adds that just like google made peoples lives easier by understanding how to find information that's relevant to the questions being asked he hopes the consortium theyre building is going to serve the same way except with manufacturing in mind there's so much manufacturing information out there there's good information there's misinformation there's confusion on how we embrace and adopt these new processes there's also competition between service providers and equipment providers and confusion around how to integrate processes into factories and production operations he said that's what we're going to help try to bring clarity to instead of everyone trying to figure that out for themselves we want to sort of standardize the approach and the answers so that everyone can make a decision from an equal playing ground and we think that's a huge value proposition
the secureamerica institute is a public-private research collaborative converging industry government and academia to integrate advancements in manufacturing resilience it seeks to strengthen and expand the united states' manufacturing and defense industrial base at the local state and national levels to counter global marketplace supply chain disruptions develop and deploy innovative manufacturing technologies and products and educate and train people in new and emerging advanced manufacturing technologies and processes
the secureamerica institute (sai) is partnering with project mfg to host competitions for students to address manufacturing skills gaps and change how americans view the skilled trades as part of the national imperative for industrial skills initiative this initiative is part of the department of defenses industrial base analysis and sustainment program which is working together with the texas a&m engineering experiment station to address the united states defense manufacturing skills gap a career and technical education (cte) team from bryan isd was one of several teams who competed in qualifying rounds last week at adams engineers and equipment (aee) in jacksonville texas vying for a chance to advance to future competitions and win a $100 000 grand prize project mfgs integrated manufacturing competitions offer students real-world experiences and instill work ethic and time management skills through challenges involving machining welding metrology programming and inspection tasks associated with fabricating a product to the required specifications each school determines the number of teammates necessary based on individual disciplines and skill sets the competition is timed and each teammate has associated labor costs highlighting the need for high quality and efficient work i saw a 3d printer in middle school and became interested in manufacturing said ryan hill a student from bryan isd who has been enrolled in the cte program for two years it opened my eyes to the industry and i plan to pursue a future in machining aee in jacksonville was the host site for the east texas qualifying rounds and serves a texas manufacturing customer base with applications engineering and training resources to ensure an investment in manufacturing technology results in optimal success sai and aee are collaborating closely to incorporate additive manufacturing into the 2022 competition schedule the bryan high school team demonstrated outstanding programming machining and welding skills beyond their years they were also introduced to industrial 3d printing as a manufacturing process said cliff adams president of aee while putting their existing technical skills to the test and learning about new technologies we observed their enthusiasm and problem-solving skills our texas manufacturing base is in good hands for the future project mfg competitions are nationwide and open to high schools community colleges trade schools and universities sai will host the texas state competition in spring 2022 at its newly renovated headquarters located on the texas a&m university systems rellis campus the winning team will advance to the national finals in may 2022 and be featured on clash of trades manufacturing employees work in fast-paced skills-shifting environments where technology changes in a matter of months rather than years while technological advances may eliminate some jobs they will create many more according to a study by deloitte the manufacturing industry increasingly finds itself unable to fill those positions with qualified candidates recruiting and developing the next generation of the us manufacturing workforce needs a fresh approach and project mfg serves as an exemplar said rob gorham sai executive director our partnership is only just starting and we are looking forward to expanding across texas for an even larger impact
the secureamerica institute is a public-private research collaborative converging industry government and academia to integrate advancements in manufacturing resilience it seeks to strengthen and expand the united states' manufacturing and defense industrial base at the local state and national levels to counter global marketplace supply chain disruptions develop and deploy innovative manufacturing technologies and products and educate and train people in new and emerging advanced manufacturing technologies and processes
fatigue due to extended periods of work and insufficient rest can impair job performance situation awareness and decision-making capabilities even when its needed most specifically in safety-critical environments such as responding to wildfires fatigue has been associated with a two-fold increase in the risk of injuries and errors and a four-fold increase in safety-compromising behaviors during emergencies to mitigate these outcomes researchers at texas a&m university are evaluating how the impact of fatigue-causing performance declines in safety-critical workers such as firefighters nurses and emergency room (er) doctors can be delayed through the use of transcranial direct current stimulation (tdcs) a wearable and noninvasive brain stimulation technology that uses weak electrical currents to stimulate certain parts of the brain administrative and personal countermeasures such as sleep/shift schedules education and stimulants like caffeine take a reactive approach and are largely impractical during emergencies in some cases they are accompanied by substantial health side effects said dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering transformative human augmentation paradigms to proactively tackle fatigue deficits through noninvasive neurostimulation have proven more effective than stimulants and may address prevailing adoption barriers the research team also includes reed smoot an undergraduate student in the department of electrical and computer engineering and rohith karthikeyan a doctoral student in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and first author and lead student on the study the team conducted a three-session experimental study with 32 participants at each session participants completed an hour-long fatiguing cognitive task that has shown to disrupt and impair an individuals cognitive processes and executive functions ie working memory participants either received anodal stimulation associated with the enhancement of the stimulated brain area received a sham (placebo) stimulation or did not receive the stimulation on each of the three sessions the stimulation was provided at the 20-minute mark during the fatiguing task for 10 minutes at 1 ma (milliampere) task performance fatigue responses effort discomfort and heart-rate variability were also evaluated out of the counterbalance of anodal stimulation sham stimulation and no stimulation the team found that by exciting neuronal activity through anodal stimulation task performance under fatigue improved by approximately 15% (ranging from 10-50% across the study pool) while it decreased under the other two sessions the researchers were also able to capture the selective benefits of anodal stimulation on response selection eg choosing an appropriate action to take which was enhanced when the stimulation was provided while inhibitory control or the ability to inhibit impulsive natural and habitual responses did not increase individuals were able to preserve this cognitive function under anodal stimulation which otherwise declined significantly under sham or no stimulation additionally these improvements were comparable for both men and women fatigue is a personal experience and is impacted by both declines in cognitive and neural resources but also motivation a unique aspect of this work was to understand and capture the various gains that neurotechnologies can provide the stimulation-related improvements were not available at a perceptual level ie individuals did not report lower fatigue ratings under the anodal stimulation we are currently investigating how such solutions will be trusted and operationalized in the field especially within human-centered systems karthikeyan said the study findings emphasize the potency of neurostimulation as an equitable fatigue countermeasure to support workers during high-risk fatiguing operations such as responding to emergencies that can last several days or weeks especially given the shortage in the er workforce we still have some way to go before this technology can be rolled out in the field our study employed stimulation parameters at levels not previously tested largely to shed light on dose-response relationships but also keeping in mind what is practically feasible and ethical if such technology were to be utilized in er operations mehta said the team has since begun the next phase of empirical testing along with customer discovery efforts with emergency responders using the innovation corps sites program offered by the texas a&m engineering experiment station we are committed to developing trustworthy engineering solutions that work for emergency responders when they need it; thus adopting a human-centered approach is critical mehta said
whether you are taking a muscle relaxant or a heart medication you are possibly using a medication that contains a synthetically produced benzoxazole although natural benzoxazoles show more significant promise in pharmaceuticals their time to develop organically and inherent undesired properties impede their usage dr xuejun zhu assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university alongside graduate student huanrong ouyang and two undergraduate students joshua hong and jeshua malroy are synthesizing natural benzoxazoles using e coli in hopes of developing a more efficient eco-friendly and cost-effective method of producing them for future drug development their research was published in the american chemical societys journal acs synthetic biology 2021 benzoxazole is a heterocyclic compound composed of carbon hydrogen oxygen and nitrogen it can be produced synthetically but is also found in bioactive natural products like nataxazole caboxamycin and calcimycin synthetically created benzoxazoles are found in synthetic pharmaceuticals ranging from chlorzoxazone (a muscle relaxant) to tafamidis (for treating heart disease) however natural benzoxazoles are rarely used because of the time it takes to organically produce the compounds and their unwanted properties such as high toxicity low potency and poor solubility there is limited research on natural benzoxazoles but they contain many qualities that show potential for future use in cancer antiparasitic and antimicrobial treatments for example some natural benzoxazoles show promising cytotoxic activity that fights against various tumor cell lines currently natural methods for producing the compound benzoxazole occur very slowly sometimes taking a week or longer said zhu the natural compounds can also cause excess levels of toxicity or other undesired properties that restrict its applications desiring to extract and combat certain qualities of natural benzoxazoles the researchers turned to the microbe e coli ­ a bacterium found in the environment and within human and animal intestines compared to other microbes e coli grows very quickly said ouyang modern researchers have conducted numerous studies on e coli and it is easier for us to manipulate genetically for productivity improvement especially for large-scale production the researchers modified an e coli with a few essential genes for making the natural benzoxazoles by coupling the engineered e coli with precursor-directed biosynthesis a pathway is developed to produce natural benzoxazoles at a faster rate from our study we found we could produce three different types of benzoxazoles simultaneously said zhu each type could have different biological activities such as antimicrobial antiparasitic and anticancer by tailoring variables such as using different precursors the researchers can further expand the structural diversity of benzoxazoles with the hope to reverse some of the natural benzoxazoles inherent issues to improve solubility and potency while lowering toxicity levels we found that our e coli-based platform can recognize and incorporate selected precursors like fluorine or chlorine into scaffolds said ouyang our research serves as a foundation for future drug discovery and development with a sustainable way to develop natural benzoxazoles they could potentially be used in various medications with more benefits than synthetically produced benzoxazoles the researchers hope this is a step toward a straightforward and cost-effective method of generating novel benzoxazole analogs through protein engineering and combinatorial biosynthesis this work is supported by the texas a&m engineering experiment station and chemical engineering department start-up funds
in september 2021 the texas a&m rgv advanced manufacturing hub (rami) was launched by the texas a&m university system to provide workforce development and invigorate the advanced manufacturing sector in the rio grande valley (rgv) the initiative is building a thriving presence in south texas with hundreds enrolled in short courses since the launch with even bigger plans for expansion across the region the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) in collaboration with the texas a&m engineering extension service (teex) two state agencies with respected experience in professional development are offering training both in english and spanish through the advanced manufacturing hub at no cost to residents of the rgv the program currently serves job-seekers who wish to pursue careers in manufacturing and provides training to employees of companies in the industry trainees can receive instruction in occupational health and safety process improvement covid-19 protocols cybersecurity heavy equipment and manufacturing with expanded course offerings in the future online and on-site courses began in october with the goal of training a large-scale workforce in two years to meet the current and future needs of employers at the port of brownsville and the rgv area as of mid-december 178 people have earned certificates with another 238 people registered across 20 different classes said katherine diaz the regional ecosystem director for the rami we are continuing to build a robust catalog to meet industry needs and encourage new and innovative ways to expand the manufacturing business the advanced manufacturing hub will also focus on providing access to unmet needs in manufacturing allowing companies to explore growth in other areas to further empower industry in the rgv companies are required to meet industry standards which incur costs diaz said our hope is these costs will be alleviated when employers enroll their employees in our courses the money that was once used for training could now be invested in other opportunities like upgrading machinery or providing additional benefits to staff or investing in smart or advanced manufacturing techniques as the program continues to grow diaz said there are many short-term and long-term objectives planned for the future our next goal is to move into development of courses focused more closely on advanced manufacturing that arent currently included in our offerings diaz said well work closely with industry to assess their needs and fill educational gaps as the initiative sees more industry success diaz said it will be important to move into schools to create awareness of the regions advanced manufacturing opportunities and career paths available to high school and college students we want to better understand what school districts are doing in the area of manufacturing and how we can partner with them to support both training and credentialing needs she said to accomplish these goals and expand the program the advanced manufacturing hub team is collaborating with the port of brownsville to establish a larger on-site training facility the building is tentatively scheduled to open in summer 2022 texas a&m is making a long-term investment in the rio grande valley diaz said we want to support growth of the manufacturing industry in the region which is vitally important to texas manufacturing and the industry as a whole in the united states existing and new courses will continue to open throughout the year visit the texas a&m rgv advanced manufacturing hub website to learn more as a state agency tees in partnership with teex is uniquely positioned to offer robust training opportunities in manufacturing to the people of the rio grande valley at no cost thanks to the texas legislature said dr cindy lawley associate agency director for workforce development and regional divisions at tees we are proud to lead this innovative initiative and look forward to galvanizing the rgv workforce and helping people improve their employment prospects and their lives
securing the us supply chain is imperative to protect americas economic future and maximize national security thats why the secureamerica institute (sai) searched nationwide for projects that could fortify a resilient us manufacturing and defense industrial base us supply chain resiliency has taken a hit over the last few decades driven by globalization where large specialized businesses find cost advantages through economies of scale said joe schibi strategy and operations manager for deloitte which is researching multitiered supply chains with sai we can better understand prioritize and ultimately mitigate vulnerabilities when we illuminate the supply chain bringing the most basic product to market involves multiple organizations from those providing raw materials to build the product to others providing value-added services such as warehousing and distribution if any step is compromised nothing gets to the consumer for project deep view researchers at deloitte and sai are evaluating two different supply areas of national interest hypersonic technology and personal protective equipment to identify thematic risks and services that support us industry analyzing a multitiered supply chain begins with understanding the value chain down to the raw materials in hypersonic technology raw materials include items like rare earth elements used in microelectronics for navigation or targeting the majority of rare earth elements production is in china schibi said a lack of diversification is a strategic risk to the us that could result in us being cut off from these critical materials when theyre needed most projects like deep view can further address the ominous trend of diamond supply chains which undermine manufacturing security and resiliency explained dr eleftherios iakovou sais manufacturing supply chain director and harvey hubbell professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university diamond supply chains happen when major components of critical supply chains are all concentrated in certain countries (deeper in the chain in higher-tier suppliers) often as a result of national industry policy iakovou said disruption in the flow of physical goods is just one dimension of supply chain risk indirect goods and services can also impact resiliency indirect goods and services include software used to design and protect sensitive intellectual property (ip) which is particularly relevant in a supply area critical to national security like hypersonic technology when we analyzed a segment of the industry we saw companies using foreign software and web hosting services for product design and collaboration activities schibi said this can increase the risk of ip theft while ip theft is less of an issue in a mature industry like personal protective equipment (ppe) other risks like quality control can undermine resiliency just before the covid-19 pandemic began nine million surgical gowns were recalled because of poor sterilization practices by foreign manufacturers schibi said improper sterilization fractured the supply chain and widened the gap between demand and supply when demand was surging it was truly a perfect storm for the product category in light of the supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic calls for reshoring or transferring manufacturing back to the us from overseas have increased however there are economic barriers for many product categories including ppe we can pursue a multifaceted approach that includes reshoring at strategic points in the value chain as well as stronger partnerships with ally nations schibi said for example a surgical gown company could diminish the risk of poor sterilization practices by reshoring only the sterilization process making this a final activity performed in the us could provide greater oversight while avoiding more significant cost increases of reshoring all manufacturing both schibi and iakovou hope the projects findings will produce safer supply chains in all industries capable of withstanding raw material shocks and rapid demands spikes and will also encourage the manufacturing industry to pursue solutions domestically in the us supply chain visibility and mapping are absolutely necessary to develop next-generation cost-competitive resilient supply chains for the nation iakovou said the supply shocks of the last two years have shown us that viewing raw materials semifinished goods and finished products starting from suppliers to customers is more important than ever
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we might work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
the national academy of inventors (nai) has named two texas a&m university college of engineering faculty to their 2021 class of nai fellows dr gerard coté and dr james hubbard jr are among the 164 prolific academic innovators from across the world named fellow induction ceremonies will be held at nais annual meeting this june in phoenix the 2021 fellow class hails from 116 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes worldwide they collectively hold over 4 800 issued us patents among the new class of fellows are 33 members of the national academies of sciences engineering and medicine and three nobel laureates as well as other honors and distinctions their collective body of research and entrepreneurship covers a broad range of scientific disciplines involved with the technology transfer of their inventions for the benefit of society the caliber of this years class of nai fellows is outstanding each of these individuals is highly regarded in their respective fields said nai president paul r sanberg in a press release the breadth and scope of their discovery are truly staggering im excited not only to see their work continue but also to see their knowledge influence a new era of science technology and innovation worldwide coté is director of the center for remote health technologies and systems a texas a&m regents professor and holder of the james j cain professorship i in the department of biomedical engineering he holds the rank of fellow in the institute of electrical and electronics engineers the international society for optics and photonics the biomedical engineering society and the american institute for medical and biological engineering another recent honor includes receiving the walston chubb award for innovation from sigma xi the scientific research honor society cotés research focuses on the development of macro- to nano-scale biomedical systems and point-of-care devices some research applications include the development of innovative noninvasive and minimally invasive ways to test blood sugar levels in diabetes; detecting other body chemicals such as cardiac biomarkers for cardiovascular disease; the use of mobile device and optoelectronics technology to detect malaria at the point of care; and monitoring perfusion oxygenation heart rate heart rate variability and cuffless blood pressure with wearable devices hubbard who serves as oscar s wyatt jr '45 chair i professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is a member of the national academy of engineering he joined texas a&m in early 2017 first serving as a visiting fellow of the hagler institute for advanced study before accepting a permanent position hubbard leads the starlab a state-of-the-art motion-capture research space well-suited for testing and developing new methods and technologies he also is internationally known for his research in aeroacoustics for noise control adaptive structures spatially distributed transducers and the extension of modem time-domain control methodologies into the spatial domain to monitor distributed systems the nai fellows program has 1 403 members worldwide representing more than 250 prestigious universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes coté and hubbard join 14 current or past texas a&m faculty members selected as nai fellows
texas a&m university nuclear engineer marvin l adams has been nominated by president joe biden to a key executive branch position for maintaining the us nuclear weapons stockpile the appointment to serve as deputy administrator for defense programs within the department of energy requires senate confirmation adams would oversee programs for the design maintenance assessment manufacturing and dismantlement of all us nuclear warheads and for related programs that develop and maintain all the associated science engineering technology supply-chain and manufacturing capabilities the announcement from the white house came late wednesday less than three months after adams was tapped for his national security expertise to serve on bidens 30-member panel of top science and technology advisors adams is the htri professor of nuclear engineering a regents fellow and the director of national laboratories mission support for the texas a&m university system he started 29 years ago at the flagship in college station and has served for decades in advisory roles at the nations three nuclear security laboratories texas a&m president m katherine banks has worked with adams for the past decade both banks and adams were instrumental in the texas a&m system obtaining a federal contract in 2018 to help manage the los alamos national laboratory in new mexico as the nations foremost academic expert on stewardship of the nuclear stockpile i cannot imagine a better person to hold this position than dr marvin adams banks said we are proud to have someone from texas a&m selected for such a crucial role that is consistent with our history of public service and our dedication to national security adams is considered by those inside and outside the federal government as the nations foremost academic expert on the nuclear stockpile his research has advanced the nations ability to use complex computer algorithms to help assess weapons reliability while explosive testing is banned chancellor john sharp called the appointment an incredible honor dr adams lives the six texas a&m core values of respect excellence leadership loyalty integrity and selfless service sharp said every aggie should be proud of his nomination and every american should be grateful if confirmed by the senate adams will help manage a $16 billion budget his position is one of four top jobs in the national nuclear security administration that require senate approval i feel honored and humbled to be considered for this kind of service in support of us national security adams said texas a&m has a long tradition of valuing and providing service to the nation in keeping with this the texas a&m university system has supported my national-service activities over the years and i am deeply grateful for this as an educator adams has taught generations of engineers including many who have gone on to careers at the national nuclear labs los alamos lawrence livermore national laboratory and sandia national laboratories this story originally appeared in texas a&m today
dr feng zhao associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university is innovating ways we treat tissue damage in the body zhaos expertise is in cardiovascular tissue engineering and tissue vascularization (where a capillary network capable of delivering nutrients to the cells is formed within the tissue) applications range from cardiac patches and vascular grafts for bypass surgeries to wound healing to ensure an engineered tissue is accepted by the body a common strategy is to start the process of building the 3d structure of a material that mimics the natural tissue as much as possible including using tools to organize the cells into a tissue structure so that the engineered tissues can be better integrated into the body you want to mimic a natural process because the cells can better perform their function in an environment that they are familiar with zhao said it's not that easy to fully replicate the in vivo environment but we try to do that
one tissue engineering challenge is ensuring the graft is vascularized and nourished similar to the natural tissue through vascular bioengineering zhao said researchers could work to ensure that engineered 3d tissues contain the vessels and capillaries necessary for vascularization when the structure or scaffold is placed in the patient one of her newer projects focuses on lymphatic tissue regeneration to limit the chance of lymphedema the build-up of fluid in soft body tissues when the lymph system is damaged or blocked after cancer surgeries lymphatic tissue vessels remove extra fluid but if the tissue is damaged after a trauma like surgery zhao said lymphedema could easily develop as the fluid cannot be removed we have developed some tools to engineer the lymphatic microvessels in vitro that highly mimic the in vivo process of the lymphatic microvascular formation zhao said however its still not enough to fully restore the function of lymphatic tissue unlike other tissues lymphatic tissue contains capillaries and vessels of varying sizes and larger vessels contain valves that ensure the unidirectional flow of collected fluids since zhaos model has shown success her team is now working on developing models for larger and valved vessels we are still striving to seek a perfect solution zhao said we are tissue engineers we use our unique way to recover the damaged tissue to its original shape and function
"time for a road trip you punch the destination into your gps and choose the suggested route but is this shortest route the safest not necessarily according to texas a&m university researchers dr dominique lord and dr soheil sohrabi with the help of funding from the ap and florence wiley faculty fellow at texas a&m designed a study to examine the safety of navigational tools comparing the safest and shortest routes between five metropolitan areas in texas dallas-fort worth waco austin houston and bryan-college station including more than 29 000 road segments they found that taking a route with an 8% reduction in travel time could increase the risk of being in a crash by 23% ""as route guidance systems aim to find the shortest path between a beginning and ending point they can misguide drivers to take routes that may minimize travel time but concurrently carry a greater risk of crashes "" said lord professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering the researchers collected and combined road and traffic characteristics including geometry design number of lanes lane width lighting and average daily traffic weather conditions and historical crash data to analyze and develop statistical models for predicting the risk of being involved in crashes the study revealed inconsistencies in the shortest and safest routes in clear weather conditions taking the shortest route instead of the safest between dallas-fort worth and bryan-college station will reduce the travel time by 8% still the probability of a crash increases to 20% the analysis suggests that taking the longest route between austin and houston with an 11% increase in travel time results in a 1% decrease in the daily probability of crashesoverall local roads with a higher risk of crashes include poor geometric designs drainage problems lack of lighting and a higher risk of wildlife-vehicle collisions lord and sohrabi recent civil engineering doctoral graduate and postdoctoral research associate in roadway safety at the texas a&m transportation institute published their findings in a prominent transportation journal transportation research part c they also propose a new system architecture to find the safest route using navigation systems"
"our study revealed the potential of commonly used road navigation apps to misguide users toward using a road that carries a higher risk of crashes which implies the need for considering safety in route-finding sohrabi said developing such a system is however challenging we proposed a system architecture for safe route-finding and highlighted the requirements for and barriers in incorporating safety in navigation apps in the new system architecture for finding the safest route researchers said that after receiving the trip destination and time of day the algorithm would identify routes by using the road network data and possible incidents including road or lane closures due to flooding or crashes the system would also factor in road characteristics historical crash data traffic information and current weather conditions the route with the lowest accumulated risk would then be suggested as the safest routenavigation based on safety rather than travel time can result in preventing crashes and promoting overall safety on the road network and eventually save lives "" lord said while this proposed system is promising it is heavily dependent on the availability of data by local and federal government agencies responsible for road transportation the requirements for deploying safety in route-finding systems also include the availability of real-time traffic flow and incident reports and more accurate crash prediction models additionally including a safety consideration in navigation apps would introduce the issue of a trade-off between travel time and safety researchers said drivers who arent concerned with safety might take a route with a higher risk of crashes to reduce travel time but all road users are affected if a collision occurs ""given the fact that crashes can affect not only those involved but also other road users leaving the choice between safety and time to the users may result in unethical decisions and unfair consequences "" sohrabi saidadditional work is needed to address some of the limitations in the study such as distinguishing directional crash risk intersection crash risks and the severity of crashes along these routes"
"dr mladen kezunovic from the texas a&m university college of engineering is among 111 new members and 22 international members recently elected to the national academy of engineering (nae) this honor is among the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer kezunovic regents professor and eugene e webb professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering was elected for contributions to automated analysis of power system faults and leadership in education in protective relaying also elected is dr vijay p singh distinguished professor regents professor and caroline & william n lehrer distinguished chair in the department of biological and agricultural engineering which is jointly administered by the college of agriculture and life sciences and the college of engineering singh is credited with contributions to wave modeling and development of entropy-based theories of hydrologic processes and hydroclimatic extremes academy membership honors those who have had an outstanding influence on ""engineering research practice or education including where appropriate significant contributions to the engineering literature"" and to ""the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education"" congratulations to mladen and vijay for achieving this recognition said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor and dean of engineering each researcher continues to add immeasurable scholarship to the field of engineering enabling us to attract outstanding students and faculty this level of excellence is what makes texas a&m engineering one of the top-ranked programs in the country kezunovic is the site director of the power systems engineering research center and director of the power system control and protection lab his expertise is in protective relaying automated power system disturbance analysis computational intelligence and data analytics and smart grids before joining texas a&m in 1986 he worked for westinghouse electric corp and energoinvest in europe among his many honors kezunovic was appointed by the us secretary of energy to serve two terms on the electricity advisory committee for the department of energy he has been named an institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) life fellow and a council on large electric systems (cigre) fellow honorary member and distinguished member he has published more than 600 papers in journals and conference proceedings and has been invited to give more than 140 lectures worldwide he is also listed as a distinguished speaker of the ieee power engineering society while at texas a&m he has been the principal investigator on more than 120 research projects and supervised more than 60 graduate students the new inductees bring the total us membership to 2 388 and the number of international members to 310 they will be formally inducted during the nae's annual meeting on oct 2"
hypersonic weapons travel at least five times the speed of sound and are critical to us national security measures advanced innovation is required to keep this type of technology nimble and agile thats why the secureamerica institute (sai) partners at ursa major technologies are exploring how additive manufacturing (3d printing) capabilities can enhance the production of hypersonic engines as part of a sai nationwide initiative to empower a secure us defense industrial base propulsion systems are important components of hypersonic engines these complex parts must work together seamlessly to ensure a high-performing and reliable system according to research at ursa major incorporating additive manufacturing into hypersonic production presents novel approaches to increase engine efficiency 3d-printing technology allows us to bypass the constraints of traditional manufacturing processes said sabrina ames mission program manager at ursa major with additive technology we can produce higher-performing fuel injectors and make fluid passages that mix fuel and oxidizer much more efficiently without adding significant mass to the parts additive metallic manufacturing has the potential to address the critical need to create high-temperature parts with complex internal flow paths supporting the acceleration of propulsion engine design and technology said dr erica corral associate professor at the university of arizona and member of the governance board for the texas a&m university consortium for applied hypersonics additionally new opportunities for additive manufacturing of complex shape parts creates demand for research and development of reliable mechanical and thermal properties in these non-cast parts that are typically unique to their build and process ursas majors research focuses specifically on the 3d printing of small holes within propulsion systems that require small intricate fluid passages creating more complicated passages was not possible before the introduction of additive manufacturing technology it was significant for us to understand diversity between machines vendors and print orientation when designing these components ames said the geometry is also important we needed to discern how repeatable these holes were given different types of print orientations the research team began by experimenting with simple models and then moved on to more complex designs we created flat plates with holes first and then flowed those plates with a water flow rate developed in-house ames said next we printed a rocket engine pre-burner for water flow testing ursa majors project discovered machine-to-machine variability and vendor-to-vendor variability when printing complex fluid passages were higher than desired what will help us as an industry is to have more uniform flow coming out of the same parts ames said geometrically the parts may be identical but they flow differently because they print differently consistently producing parts repeatedly across multiple machines in multiple facilities is the next step in unlocking the power of this technology to help an emerging market like hypersonics become sustainable said chris holshouser sais director of applied programs and strategic partnerships ames said outcomes from the study are already strengthening different areas of the hypersonics industry understanding this type of flow variation can help us anchor our designs we are already using what we learned and putting it into action she said
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we can work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
"the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) office of commercialization and entrepreneurships deeptech ventures was nominated as one of five finalists in the outstanding contributions to venture creation award category during the 2021 global consortium of entrepreneurship centers (gcec) conference gcec is the premier academic organization that addresses emerging topics of importance to the nations university-based entrepreneurship programs it has become the vehicle by which top established entrepreneurship programs as well as emerging programs can work together to share best practices develop programs and initiatives and collaborate and help each other in advancing strengthening and celebrating the role of universities in teaching the entrepreneurs of tomorrow their awards annually showcase and celebrate university entrepreneurship in 10 categoriesto be recognized by this consortium not only brings prestige and recognition to our institution but allows other peer institutions to recognize our accomplishments said dr saurabh biswas executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship at tees and associate professor of practice in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university in a sea of academic entrepreneurship globally a recognition of this level is rewarding and meaningfulthe gcec awards showcase and celebrate the very best of university entrepreneurship globally to be considered there is a rigorous application process submitted to the consortium from universities that are fostering a culture of innovation in their respective ecosystems the submissions are reviewed by the awards review committeethe outstanding contributions to venture creation award that the tees office of commercialization and entrepreneurship was nominated for honors a center that creatively supports the process of launching and accelerating university-affiliated startups through competitions incubators accelerators and other programs selection criteria includes the strength of program content specific outcomes of the program (including diversity of participants) growth of the program over time and level of community engagementtheir submission was for deeptech ventures which has played a critical role in advancing deeptech innovations (early-stage companies applying deep technologies with an available prototype) from lab to marketplace with significant local national and global impactwe are very proud to be selected among the top global entrepreneurship/venture creation programs with this recognition said biswas the commercialization and entrepreneurship team is responsible for managing intellectual property new venture creation and commercialization of ideas emerging from one of the largest engineering research enterprises in the nation and serves more than 700 faculty members and 20 000 students in every area of engineering with our focus on launching deeptech startups and supporting industry partners in the commercialization process we are entering our next phase of growth at tees we are committed to continue working closely with our students researchers and ecosystem partners to accelerate the creation of more transformational startups"""
protecting information technology (it) and operational technology (ot) networks is crucial to safeguard the manufacturing industry as part of the secureamericas institutes (sai) nationwide initiative to empower the us manufacturing enterprise sai and partners at north carolina state university (nc state) and airgap inc are developing technology to resist attacks detect attacks in progress and ensure an it/ot system can automatically restore itself to a trusted state cyberattacks are one of the biggest threats to any organization and commonly target it networks (which share information data and resources between computers in an organization) the manufacturing industry is particularly vulnerable because its it networks are linked to operational technology networks that directly control machine functions and processes if an attacker corrupts the entire it/ot system it can lead to a complete business shutdown resulting in financial losses and ripple effects across the industry most of the manufacturing in the us happens in small and medium size firms making them an ideal target said rob gorham sais executive director the nc state teams effort to protect valuable manufacturing capabilities across it and ot is important in the secureamerica institutes journey to enable robust manufacturing supply chains manufacturing equipment is expensive and many smaller manufacturers have limited resources when it comes to technical expertise and budget said dr munindar singh alumni distinguished graduate professor in nc statess computer science department this means their networks are not always following the best practices needed to quickly isolate and mitigate potential threats singh and his partners abhi muthiyan architect of airgap inc and dr samudra vijay president and ceo of sam analytic solutions are collaborating on a two-fold automated approach for manufacturers to detect and resist cyberthreats a virtual honeypot (a security mechanism that creates a trap to lure bad actors) is created to deceive potential attackers paired with an appliance to isolate an ot network from its backup malware and ransomware can easily penetrate an entire system muthiyan said we are trying to prevent entire manufacturing plants from shutting down due to attacks and help them recover swiftly our isolation methods retain local backup copies which enable recovery in hours as compared to recovery in days for cloud backups backups should be immediately separated from the network to protect sensitive data in the event of a cyberattack vijay and his colleagues are developing a device to immediately cut off backups from the network and prevent attackers from accessing the entire system isolation of threats permits companies to continue operations while assessing the problem and decreasing severe impacts vijay said this technology can dramatically increase the resilience of small businesses and manufacturing entities the nc state team applies layers of detection and deception to it/ot networks including vulnerability detection file system monitoring and dynamic provisioning of honeypot resources for programmable logic controllers human-machine interface and supervisory control and data acquisition systems this intentionally compromised system will mimic a vulnerable manufacturing machine and trick the attacker once malicious intent is discovered the risk analyzer categorizes the threat and triggers alerts specific device isolation or entire network isolation we want to trap the attacker in the least disruptive way to an organization and convince them theyre getting something valuable when theyre not singh said most traditional approaches to cybersecurity assume the attacker is outside the walls that an organization or business is like a walled city and is safe in reality most attacks come from within this could happen through phishing attempts corrupted usb drives and more singh said thats why we need to isolate different parts of the walled city from one another if an attack only corrupts one small corner we can limit further harm and strengthen the industry
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we can work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
the future relies on the present especially regarding global issues such as climate change and depleting natural resources that affect our daily lives the efforts of scientists and engineers to find solutions to these ongoing problems are critical in creating a greener tomorrow dr manish shetty assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university uses chemical engineering to find viable solutions to some of earths problems in sustainability climate change and clean energy a new member of the department shettys desire to make a difference influenced his decision to work for texas a&m texas is a growing state that plays a big role when it comes to the conversation around energy based on sustainability and how the world is going to chart a path forward he said i believe that texas a&m is one of the premier institutes in the state and the country and id like to make contributions and have a spot at the table when discussing issues of this magnitude shetty has an extensive educational background that started at the indian institute of technology bombay where he received a bachelors and masters degree in chemical engineering he later attended the massachusetts institute of technology earning a doctoral degree in chemical engineering the skill sets chemical engineers are equipped with can tackle problems of a generation in terms of making sustainable fuels sustainable materials dealing with the problems of climate change and extending the timescale of our humanity he said shettys research focuses on catalysis for energy and sustainability for example many products like crude oil can be converted into value-added chemicals through experimentation engineers have discovered ways to use plastic waste in fuels understanding how to repurpose materials through chemical reactions lies at the root of his research i spend my time thinking about how we can redesign materials or use waste in different applications shetty said in this way chemical engineering can make an impact at the state country and global levels as he continues his research and shares knowledge in his classrooms shetty hopes to showcase the importance of his field of study to future generations we have a diverse student body including first-generation students students of different cultural backgrounds and various socioeconomic statuses he said as a faculty member i want to influence students of all backgrounds to contribute to society through chemical engineering
dr arum han professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was named editor-in-chief of the journal biomedical microdevices alongside dr alessandro grattoni with the houston methodist research institute and houston methodist hospital biomedical microdevices is a leading journal that discusses micro/nanodevices used in biomedical applications the journal is published by the publisher platform springer and was founded as a scientific journal dedicated to the dissemination of new scientific discoveries and development in the field of micro- and nanotechnologies applied to medicine topics include the design characterization testing modeling and clinical validation of microfabricated systems as well as their integration on-chip and in larger functional units since its inaugural issue in 1998 biomedical microdevices has been a reference journal in the field of micro/nanodevices and has contributed to shaping this area of research to date 106 issues comprising more than 1800 articles have been published han is a chancellors enhancing development and generating excellence in scholarship fellow and the presidential impact fellow of texas a&m he also holds a joint appointment in the department of biomedical engineering and is a graduate faculty member of the texas a&m health science center faculty of the texas a&m institute for neuroscience and faculty of texas a&ms toxicology program hans research focuses on the development of microfluidic lab-on-a-chip and organ-on-a-chip systems that enable unique biological experiments at high throughput and high accuracy which can then be adopted by the broad bio/medical science community he has pioneered the area of high-throughput microfluidics for microbiology applications and has been applying these technologies to synthetic biology host-pathogen interactions infectious disease and microbial bioproduction applications his research has been funded by a variety of sources including government agencies such as the national institutes of health and philanthropic foundations such as the gates foundation one of his key accomplishments has been the development of technologies that enable complex multi-step biological assays involving mammalian cells microorganisms and viruses to be conducted in high-throughput microfluidics format he has also pioneered the area of organ-on-a-chip systems for feto-maternal interfaces and preterm birth research and is applying these micro-physiological system models to new therapeutic development against preterm birth
"dr jeyavijayan ""jv"" rajendran assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the 2022 office of naval research (onr) young investigator award for his research proposal to develop the next generation of tools to bolster hardware security when designing software and hardware vulnerabilities can and do occur patching software vulnerabilities found once distributed into the field is much easier for companies who can easily send patches to fix any issues however when it comes to hardware it is much more difficult to patch after the design process has concluded rajendran has proposed a new methodology to find these vulnerabilities during the design process so that these faults can be fixed prior to the final distribution stage fuzzing techniques which are automated testing methods that insert invalid malformed or unexpected data into a system to reveal defects and security faults are shown to be highly effective in detecting software vulnerabilities but the current proposals aimed at fuzzing hardware suffer from various limitations these include a limited scope of applicability error proneness inadequate evaluations provided and limited prospects for future improvement through this three-year funded project rajendran will work to solve all these challenges and bring the state-of-the-art fuzzing-based vulnerability detection techniques to hardware through the novel hardware fuzzer called steelwool which does not require any modification to the target processor and utilizes existing hardware simulation tools and techniques so it is easily integrated with existing hardware design this award gives me the confidence that i can pick my own topic for which i have taken no course for during my phd or during grad school; and i can contribute a solution to a problem i aim to solve which is exciting rajendran said in addition to this award rajendrans research has received many other honors such as the national science foundation faculty early career development program award the association for computing machinery's special interest group on design automation outstanding young faculty award the institute of electrical and electronics engineers ceda ernest s kuh early career award and the texas a&m engineering experiment stations genesis award for multidisciplinary research the onr young investigator program provides support to academic scientists and engineers who are in their first or second full-time tenure-track academic appointment have received their doctoral degree in the past seven years and show exceptional promise for executing creative research"
dr robin murphy raytheon professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has been named a 2021 american association for the advancement of science (aaas) fellow for founding the search-and-rescue robotics field pioneering the field of human-robot interaction and informing policy and practice in rescue robotics worldwide founded in 1848 the aaas is the worlds largest general multidisciplinary scientific society and is also the publisher of the science family of journals elected annually the aaas fellow is one of the most distinct honors bestowed in the scientific community the 2021 class of fellows spans 24 disciplines and includes 564 engineers scientists and innovators who are being recognized for their scientifically and socially distinguished achievements in their respective fields murphy is one of the 26 new fellows honored in the information computing and communication section she has deployed ground aerial and marine robots to nearly 30 disasters in five countries starting with the 9/11 world trade center collapse and also including hurricanes katrina and harvey the fukushima daiichi nuclear accident and the kilauea volcanic eruption in more than 150 articles and an award-winning book disaster robotics murphy has documented the science behind the robots and the need for artificial intelligence and human-robot teaming additionally she has founded the institute of electrical and electronics engineers international symposium on safety security and rescue robotics the new class is featured in the aaas news and notes section of the january 2022 issue of science and they will be recognized for their achievements later this year during an in-person gathering view the complete list of 2021 fellows on the aaas website
visualizing manufacturing processes is crucial to form insights and prevent potential vulnerabilities as part of the secureamerica institutes (sai) $5-million project call sai partners at amentum are exploring how a real-time 2d/3d visual modeling and simulation framework of sensor-fusion data will enable a more resilient industrial base sensor-fusion overcomes the limitations of individual sensors (cameras light sensors smart sensors lidar radar etc) by gathering or fusing data from multiple sensors to produce reliable information in manufacturing combining multiple sensor-fusion technology data sets yields a more robust understanding of physical information and a more complete picture of manufacturing processes we saw the ability to use a sensor-fusion-based application to reliably create information that can be used in real time and offline to give us better situational awareness of whats happening in a manufacturers supply chain operations and in areas considered critical infrastructure said dr paul cummings vice president of transformational training systems at amentum sensor-fusion technologies are critical for handling the rapidly increasing demand for data across the manufacturing enterprise said dr darrell wallace sai deputy director and chief technology officer this project brings together diverse expertise to address the complexity of data integration representation and synthesis as important facilitators for new data-enabled manufacturing supply chain decision support tools amentums sensor-fusion concept is being developed in partnership with gaming company unity who are known for bringing immersive 3d augmented reality and virtual reality experiences from product data to businesses we decided to work directly with unity because of their impressive 3d-modeling capabilities cummings said their team is building a visualization system that allows us to model sensor-fusion entities and use this information in a real-time simulation this will be a key aspect to ensure more resilient supply chain manufacturing processes integrating sensor technology helps manufacturers capture data at varying levels for example smart sensors monitor the performance of various practices and aspects of machine operation they can acquire data broadly (deploying them to collect data in warehouses or vehicles) or with more precision (gathering data from microprocessors used in artificial intelligence and machine learning) cummings explained the true value of sensor-fusion architecture is approaching processes from the macro to micro level our goal is to model supply chains and collect information as well as model the components of microprocessors cameras and lidar systems for a blended approach to capture information and gain insight he said generating a sensor-fusion graphic library is amentums desired outcome the ability to create scenarios and build synthetic data sets (information that is artificially manufactured) fosters a collaborative ecosystem where data and technology are easily shared among industry players simulations and modeling also permit manufacturers to run millions of iterations to detect potential problems in their processes the future of an effective digital workforce digital infrastructure and digital supply chain will rely on the development of visualization tools and technologies cummings said generating computer vision data and traditional machine learning-based data will be meaningful to analyze and uncover discrepancies between what we see as correct information or what could possibly be a cyberattack on a system cummings said amentums partnership with sai is advancing the development of agile prototypes like their project to build toward a better future sai is converging disciplines and establishing a platform where we can come together develop our technologies and grow as one to see a more resilient manufacturing industry emerge he said
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we can work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
the secureamerica institute (sai) and the advanced robotics for manufacturing (arm) institute are partnering to investigate how robotics and automation in manufacturing can enhance the resiliency flexibility and competitiveness of us industrial base supply chains thanks to a $5 million grant award from the us department of commerces national institute of standards and technology (nist) the project plans to create the robotics and automation decision framework for agility and resilience (radar) this framework will allow small and medium-sized manufacturers (smms) to systemically evaluate the cost-to-benefit ratio of integrating robotics and automation for aiding response to supply chain disruptions due to public health crises like covid-19 and additional economic threats dr eleftherios iakovou sais manufacturing supply chain director and principal investigator on the project sees the award as an exciting and potent validation of the unique footprint sai has established and a way for the institute to provide innovative solutions to national priorities the radar end-to-end supply chain framework encompasses macro-scale and micro-scale modeling along with physical demonstration by bringing together interdisciplinary capabilities of elite partners from sai and arm including the texas manufacturing assistance center general electric deloitte georgia institute of technology and morgan state university to serve the requirements set by nist iakovou said the project is particularly valuable because it empowers smms who form the backbone of the nations industrial base iakovou continued small manufacturers often lack the scale and human capital needed to increase their use of automation and robotics to position themselves favorably in the sophisticated next-generation cost-competitive agile and resilient supply chains of americas future we are delighted to work with the team at the secureamerica institute on this important project said arnie kravitz chief innovation officer at the arm institute our work will help smaller manufacturers make better decisions in the face of the current and future pandemics radars funding is provided by the american rescue act and is part of a larger $54 million initiative by nist to award high-impact projects for pandemic response research and development across eight manufacturing institutes in the manufacturing usa network
"digitizing manufacturing processes is important for the creation of digital supply networks that seamlessly communicate allowing us supply chains to remain competitive and recover quickly during disruptions a research team at morgan state university in conjunction with the diverse manufacturers supply chain alliance (dmsca) recently conducted a digital readiness assessment focusing primarily on small-to-medium sized manufacturing enterprises (smes) as part of the secureamerica institutes nationwide initiative to empower a resilient domestic manufacturing base small-midsized manufacturing suppliers must learn how to be competitive in digitalized supply chains that connect everywhere to everything all the time said david burton president of dmsca to digitize means an organization must convert business processes from analog (manual processes) to digital (computerized) digitalization goes one step further to examine the organizational strategy governance technology and workforce processes needed to adopt digitization the morgan state university/dmsca project assessed more than 200 manufacturing businesses to develop scenarios for guiding an smes strategy toward digital readiness ""this tool couldnt come at a better time the pressure for smes to quickly adopt more strategic technologies like digitization is heavily outweighed by the need to produce parts optimally "" said chris holshouser sai's director of applied programs and strategic partnerships ""the inability of smes to modernize is a challenge outlined by the reagan report on the decline of small manufacturers our national competitive advantage lies in the strength of our smes and their innovative approaches advancing new technologies in this sector is critical"" two different survey instruments were administered: a self-assessment survey and the smart industry readiness index to determine how ready a supplier was for digitalization; what workforce technological or financial resource challenges an sme might face when moving to digital practices and to bring awareness to smes about existing gaps in their technology and the urgency of developing plans to bridge these gaps our goal is to gain a more robust view of how ready manufacturers and supply chain participants are in regards to digitalization said dr gregory ramsey associate professor of information sciences and systems at morgan state university digitalizing processes encourages the free flow of information and prevents operations silos so all pieces of the supply chain are talking to one another smes make up approximately 75% of manufacturing firms in the united states and play significant roles in efficient and productive us supply chains many smes may participate in multiple competing supply chains this matters because large multinational enterprises need smaller supply chain participants to manufacture components for the bigger pieces and products they sell all supply chains must be responsive and resilient to disruptions arising from world events such as pandemics component shortages logistical bottlenecks natural calamities cybersecurity breaches wars and trade disputes said dr abirami radhakrishnan associate professor of service and supply chain management information science and systems and project management at morgan state university digitalization of supply chain processes is the key to being responsive and resilient to disruptions during the past few years we have witnessed covid-19 and shortages in ppe the stranding of the ship ever given and disruptions to commercial shipping and semiconductor chip shortages due to mismatch between supply and demand smes usually have fewer resources to tackle issues that come about in supply chains said dr sanjay bapna chair and professor of information science and systems at morgan state university in fact most suppliers are realizing that in order to stay competitive digitalization is no longer optional most large companies require a certain level of digitalization to contract with them if an sme cannot meet those expectations they will not be able to bid on certain types of work our hope is this project will result in tools and procedures that will allow smes to gather input on their current processes and take actionable steps to advance down their path to a digitized future ramsey said"
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we can work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
"wildfires have devastated communities globally in recent years urging researchers to continue their pursuit of finding new ways to help protect lives and property researchers led by a texas a&m university professor have created a coating treatment with the potential to mitigate the spread and damage of fire without many of the drawbacks typically associated with fire retardant solutions leading the team is principal investigator dr jaime grunlan leland t jordan '29 chair professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering and his former graduate student dr thomas kolibaba who is currently a nuclear regulatory commission postdoctoral fellow at the national institute of standards and technology ""if the pandemic hadn't happened fire would have been a top story this past couple of years due to major fires in places like california and australia "" grunlan said according to the national fire protection association home fires result in billions of dollars in property damage each year and are the leading cause of fire deaths as a native of the pacific northwest kolibaba said he hopes to see this coating become accessible to the average person allowing those who live in high-risk areas to treat their own homes and property with the coating to protect against fire damage ""the solution could be sold put into a backpack sprayer like what many people use for staining wood siding or spraying herbicides on farms and then applied to structures of concern such as houses fences and barns during fire season to keep their homes safer "" kolibaba said the team shared their findings during the 2022 american chemical society spring meeting on march 22 the group's test showed that when exposed to flames wood treated with the coating saw less heat released during burning produced less smoke and developed a layer of char on the surface that helped to protect the wood underneath all features that could help to reduce fire damage and spread in addition to protecting structures and homes grunlan said this coating technology could also be applied to a variety of materials often found in furnishings including foam and fabric and vehicles like cars planes and trains the developed coating is also environmentally benign thanks to its water-based nature and adds very little weight to the material to which it is applied grunlan said their approach improves upon other coating technologies seeking to achieve similar results but include drawbacks like substantial added weight and toxic properties for people or the environment ""the ability to make wood or wood composites such as oriented strand board or plywood 'self-extinguishing' without changing any other beneficial properties will be a tremendous benefit to everyone "" grunlan said ""forests homes and buildings will be much safer"""
lithium-metal (li-metal) batteries show great potential for packing more significant amounts of energy than the current lithium-ion batteries for example a li-metal electric battery in a car could travel more miles and a li-metal phone battery could have longer battery life however the metal surface of li-metal batteries is highly reactive and there is limited understanding of the chemistry of these reactions dr perla balbuena professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university is using quantum chemical methods to track specific reactions that occur on the surfaces inside li-metal batteries understanding li-metal battery reactions and predicting products will enhance usability by decreasing their reactivity this research was recently published in the american chemical societys acs applied materials & interfaces journal and was co-authored by graduate student dacheng kuai from the department of chemistry at texas a&m we need to understand what type of reactions happen how to slow down the reactions what the components are what the morphology of the evolving products is and how the ions and electrons move through the surface said balbuena understanding these critical issues will allow us to commercialize li-metal batteries in the near future when li-metal batteries are manufactured a thin film forms on the anode commonly referred to as solid-electrolyte interphase (sei) this film is made of multiple components and produced by electrolyte decomposition the chemical makeup of the sei is critical for ensuring peak performance from the battery and extending its lifespan through experimental efforts theoretical predictions can reveal the details in this phenomenon at the atomistic and electronic levels in this study the researchers targeted a polymer that develops due to electrolyte reactions on the batterys internal surfaces pinpointing this specific polymer reaction is challenging but necessary to optimize the sei the researchers simulated the interface at the atomistic level and solved accurate quantum chemical equations to map a time evolution of the polymer formation reaction what differentiates this research is starting from the microscopic-level description and letting the system evolve according to its electronic redistribution upon chemical reaction balbuena said there are many experimental techniques that can follow and monitor the reactions but theyre challenging with this simulation we can get new insights we isolate the part of the system that is responsible for important chemical events we follow that specific group of molecules and analyze the reactions spontaneously occurring at the surface of electrodes unique to this research the computational tools used can determine the minimum energy configurations and the arrangement of the molecules during the reaction thus charting the reaction from beginning to end the researchers found that the species polymerizing in the sei could be beneficial for li-metal batteries because they can aid in controlling the level of reactivity of the battery materials we are pleased about the results as they provide insight into what could happen when using real electrodes said balbuena these findings illustrate the use of computational tools that can contribute to creating batteries that are more friendly to the environment have longer lifespans and are cheaper to produce as better chemistries evolve balbuena hopes the methodologies found in her research will be helpful for years to come this research can be a driving force for batteries in a greener more efficient direction she said i know that this work will be helpful 10 years from now because 10 years ago we made our initial contributions on li-ion batteries and our findings helped on the development of todays successful technology it is a cycle of continuous improvement
demand response a measure taken to reduce the energy load in response to supply constraints within the texas electric grid has been a topic of recent conversation as we continue to question the stability of the electric grid after the wake of winter storm uri just one year ago demand response can enhance the reliability of the grid through renewable energy penetration and also significantly reduce price volatility or fluctuation in the wholesale electricity market to reduce the energy load across the entirety of the states grid traditional demand response studies focus on reducing the energy load in high population centers such as houston and dallas however dr le xie professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and his team found that focusing on a few strategic locations across the state outside of those high-population areas is much more cost-effective and can have a greater impact on the price volatility of the grid a machine learning algorithm is utilized to strategically select these demand response locations based on a synthetic texas grid model this research was published in the february issue of the journal iscience suppose todays electricity demand results in high prices and yesterdays electricity demand resulted in low prices said postdoctoral researcher ki-yeob lee who designed the algorithm used in the paper can we move todays electricity demand closer to yesterdays electricity demand so that this change can result in low prices if this is not successful can we move todays electricity demand closer to the day before yesterdays electricity demand based on this simple idea our machine-learning algorithm searches for the day where electricity results in low prices and the amount of demand response is minimal although previous studies have demonstrated the benefits of demand response in mitigating price volatility there is limited work considering the choice of locations for maximal impact we're taking a technology-agnostic approach xie said we're showing the current market design and the consequences of this design by pointing these things out we can hopefully reduce the price volatility of the grid which we believe would be best for society in addition to xie and lee contributors to the research include dr xinbo geng dr sivaranjani seetharaman and dr srinivas shakkottai from the electrical and computer engineering department at texas a&m; dr bainan xia from breakthrough energy; and dr hao ming from southeast university in china who received his doctorate from texas a&m
researchers at texas a&m university have found a way to control the charge of nanoparticles on a two-fluid interface to create a more stable system in which its charge can also be switched and controlled the ability to change the charge of nanoparticles on a two-fluid interface specifically an oil-water interface would result in a surface that could acclimate itself to fit many diverse applications such as a more durable firefighting operation and even controlled release in certain medications based on this idea we proposed a concept that this will be a ph-responsive material if we change the ph value we can control the molecular diffusion said dr qingsheng wang associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and holder of the george armistead ‘23 faculty fellowship at texas a&m the teams research was published in the american chemical societys journal acs applied materials & interfaces emulsion is a mixture of two or more incompatible and unmixable liquids much like oil and water that can be stabilized by the interference of solid particles these solid particles tightly assemble at the fluid-fluid interface like swim lanes in a lap pool to prevent coalescence this process is known as pickering emulsion the success of this system is ultimately made possible by the use of graphene quantum dots (gqds) containing zwitterionic properties using several sheets of gqds stacked together the research team is able to not only stabilize emulsion but also control the molecular diffusion on the interface by adjusting its ph values much like flipping a light switch these sheets together measure less than 5 nanometers in thickness to put this into perspective the average human hair is anywhere from 80 000 to 100 000 nanometers wide the functionalized gqds are composed of nanocarbon materials containing zwitterionic structure which is formed from nanoparticles that contain an equal amount of both positive and negative charges while still remaining electronically neutral after the nanoparticles are added to the interface they separate the two fluids by making one side hydrophobic and the other side hydrophilic this electronic makeup also makes it possible to control the overall ph of the interface by adjusting the ph values these gqds can be finely tuned to both block and unblock an oil-water interface changing the nanoplatelets on the interface to the same charge means that they will be disassembled thus creating a more stable emulsion system this is going to help us design a good system in high-performance fire suppression in addition because we can control the release this could be promising for drug delivery and enhanced oil recovery wang said usually this is very difficult to do and sometimes if we can control the release but the system itself is not stable it may only be possible to do one or two cycles of this before the system collapses the research team consists of chemical engineering doctoral student rong ma and former chemical engineering doctoral students dr minxiang zeng now a research scientist at the university of notre dame and dr dali huang now a process engineer at formosa plastics corporation
a team of scientists and researchers from the us army engineer research and development center (erdc) the premier research and development center for the us army corps of engineers traveled to texas a&m university recently for a firsthand look at the ever-expanding capabilities and innovative research underway at the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) center for infrastructure renewal (cir) located on the rellis campus cir operated by tees and the texas a&m transportation institute is a state-of-the-art facility that researches and tests solutions to issues involving the state and nations infrastructure it attracts significant research participation from academia industry and government and educates the workforce needed to build and maintain better roads bridges tunnels sewers water supplies telecommunications and electrical grids dr anand puppala cir interim director and tim green cir strategic advisor for national security initiatives took the visitors to several labs to observe the testing of large-scale structures and materials the impacts of hypersonic speeds the use of new materials for 3d printing the use of drones and artificial intelligence to detect cracks in bridges or track flooding and the effects of corrosion in infrastructure such as concrete-encased rebar dr dimitris lagoudas senior associate dean for research and associate vice chancellor of engineering research explained how visits like these strengthen the relationship between tees and the army corps of engineers the corps vast reach and knowledge of infrastructure needs across the entire country combined with our facilities expertise and education create a productive partnership that benefits everyone he said representatives from tees and erdc exchanged challenge coins representing the applied technologies and research aspect of the continued partnership between the two agencies challenge coins are a century-old army tradition used to instill pride and reward soldiers for hard work and excellence the extraordinary work being done in these labs and the engineering education we deliver are our responsibility and our contribution to national security said dr john hurtado interim vice chancellor for engineering and dean of the college of engineering we welcome the opportunity to share our expertise with the government dr david pittman director of the us army engineer research and development center was joined on the tour by six fellow researchers at erdc we work to address the nations toughest challenges while striving to make the world a safer and better place pittman said strong partnerships are key for us in accomplishing that mission and we appreciated the opportunity to visit with a great academic partner like texas a&m university to further build that kind of collaboration
for more than a decade industry groups and task force reports have identified a growing crisis around the ability to attract retain and modernize a competitive manufacturing workforce smart and advanced manufacturing technologies present a vital opportunity to invigorate and revitalize the american manufacturing base according to a study by deloitte the need for skilled manufacturing employees is a persistent problem expected to result in 21 million unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2030 this estimate may be conservative due to the ongoing mass exodus of manufacturing employees in what has come to be called the great resignation in an industry with tiered supply chains that cover specialized material production advanced digital manufacturing processes and more the lack of suitably skilled workers is more than competitive liability; its a threat to national security said dr darrell wallace deputy director and chief technology officer at the secureamerica institute (sai) numerous publications including the reagan institutes renaissance report and the biden administrations executive order on supply chains cite upskilling the workforce and injecting smart manufacturing technologies into the american manufacturing base as imperative to national security and economic prosperity though we still have a long way to go digital threads are rapidly weaving a tapestry across the entirety of the manufacturing enterprise wallace said tomorrows competitive manufacturers will be agile digital and ‘smart in the newest sense of the word thriving in this new competitive landscape will require manufacturers to rethink long-established paradigms for technology workforce and operating models small manufacturers which comprise a large portion of the american manufacturing base face many barriers when adopting smart manufacturing practices furthermore as the industry embraces digital transformation employers cannot overlook the need to fill highly skilled positions in traditional manufacturing roles like machining welding and industrial maintenance the need for a skilled workforce in manufacturing spans the breadth of traditional advanced and emerging manufacturing processes wallace said this is particularly relevant because texas is the number-one producing state in the aerospace and defense manufacturing sectors on may 9 2022 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 we are going to hear from leading aerospace and defense manufacturing companies that have already begun their digital journeys and are leading the way in fully integrating smart manufacturing capabilities into their factory said chris holshouser sais director of applied programs and strategic partnerships events like this allow the industry to share in one anothers achievements and will hopefully set the entire community on a path for success we look forward to discussing challenges to the industry and converging our considerable consortium thought leadership to develop impactful plans focused on enhancing the long-term robustness and prosperity of manufacturing in texas wallace said concurrently these actions will contribute to the overall security and stability of the american industrial base
join the secureamerica institute and the texas defense aerospace manufacturing community at the texas manufacturing renaissance on may 9 2022 learn more about the event and register today
smart manufacturing or the use of emerging advanced technologies to increase the efficiency of traditional manufacturing processes is creating a more agile and productive industrial base experts with the secureamerica institute (sai) and texas a&m university college of engineering explain why leveraging these innovations is crucial to advance the industry forward smart manufacturing is a national priority as detailed in the white house critical and emerging technologies report said rob gorham sai executive director the secureamerica institute continues to integrate these capabilities into manufacturing ecosystems across texas and the nation the term smart manufacturing arose in the mid-2000s prompted by the arrival of new technologies such as 3d printing (additive manufacturing) and artificial intelligence other concepts like digital manufacturing and cyber manufacturing converge under the smart manufacturing label at this time global standards are still being developed to further define smart manufacturing approaches smart manufacturing processes provide better connection and communication across manufacturing systems said dr alaa elwany associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at the texas a&m university college of engineering they help to streamline procedures so systems are not operating as silos asset management and quality assurance are two areas smart manufacturing processes can vitally enhance the manufacturing industry said dr satish bukkapatnam professor of industrial and systems engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station institute for manufacturing systems remote servicing of machines ensures plants can focus on producing parts instead of repairing them while the introduction of sensor technology assures product quality and production efficiency imagine standing inside a single large manufacturing plant with multiple machines and operators each system should be communicating to share resources trigger maintenance activities order spare parts and more all at one location this type of connectivity is also needed between multiple plants at different locations across the united states within an enterprise that demands all machines communicate effectively with one another smart manufacturing technologies aid in identifying problem areas so the overall network of connected manufacturing devices produces competent and profitable operations elwany said digital twins are a powerful smart manufacturing tool that support production a digital twin is the creation of an identical virtual product or system before a physical prototype is manufactured this virtual environment allows manufacturers to run simulations iterations and testing on the design of a product to ensure viability before extensive production costs are incurred the widespread industry adoption of smart manufacturing still faces barriers especially for small-to-medium manufacturing enterprises (smes) due to cost and lack of workforce training if small and medium companies dont adapt they will be at a great disadvantage bukkapatnam said there will be a digital divide between businesses who have advanced capabilities and others who dont smart manufacturing helps the industry create a level playing field where large companies can thrive and smes who are given digital resources are not left behind organizations like the secureamerica institute are integral to provide technical expertise needed for the wider digital transformation of manufacturing elwany said sai thought leadership is our strongest resource to develop more certificate programs continuing education programs and courses to train the future manufacturing workforce in emerging technologies
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact chief technology officer dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu to discuss how we can work together to develop integrate and deploy technology solutions to ensure the security and resilience of the domestic manufacturing base
messenger ribonucleic acid (mrna) vaccines have become more popular as they can help prevent viral infections ranging from zika to covid-19 but their thermal stability remains a drawback to store and transport mrna vaccines requires ultracold freezers and cold-chain assurance making it costly and challenging to provide vaccines to rural and developing communities the national institutes of health (nih) awarded dr qing sun assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university $18 million through the stephen i katz early stage investigator research project grant using deep learning sun aims to develop mrna vaccines that are thermally stable and relax the stringent conditions needed for mrna vaccine preparation storage and distribution it is important in the future to improve the thermal stability of mrna vaccines so that if there are other infectious diseases we can respond quickly and distribute vaccines more efficiently said sun using this grant we will focus on using artificial intelligence to develop a system for thermally stable mrna vaccine development messenger rna vaccines function by triggering an immune response within the body protecting us from infection when exposed to pathogens with the onset of the pandemic the importance of vaccinations has grown being able to transport vaccines at cheaper cost without the need for extremely cold temperatures is critical for fighting against covid-19 and other infections such as rabies and influenza to help with this issue sun proposed using a deep-learning platform that has shown success in natural language processing to nucleic acid feature prediction tasks this interpretable end-to-end model can predict mrna vaccine secondary structures directly from sequence information the model has been shown to reduce mrna degradation in solution and mammalian cells after transfection the central dogma of molecular biology states that dna makes rna makes proteins said sun by changing the codons in the mrna structure we can make the same proteins to trigger immunogenic effects but with a much more stable mrna secondary structure with the ability to screen over thousands of mrna vaccine sequences through the deep-learning platform she can predict mrna sequences that are more stable when exposed to higher temperatures she plans to validate the model performance by producing the predicted top-performance mrna vaccine sequences and testing their stability and efficacy in her lab in the future sun hopes her production process can serve as a framework for other mrna vaccine processing for rapid response to pandemics outside of covid-19 by improving the thermal stability of the covid-19 mrna vaccines we could redesign all other mrna vaccines for the better she said i hope to see our deep-learning method applied to predict rna secondary structure stabilities and to study biological functions of rna molecules including noncoding rna riboswitch and therapeutic rnas the method can potentially play critical roles in cellular and viral machinery to inspire novel antibacterial antitumor and antiviral functions
sun is the principal investigator on the project she will conduct the research in her lab on the texas a&m campus with support from a team of graduate students postdoctoral researchers and lab technicians the stephen i katz early stage investigator research project grant is an r01 grant which funds creative early-stage investigators research ventures in which no preliminary data is needed
omar maddouri a doctoral student in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is working with dr byung-jun yoon his faculty advisor and professor and dr edward dougherty robert m kennedy 26 chair professor to evaluate machine-learning models using transfer learning principles dr francis frank alexander with brookhaven national labs and dr xiaoning qian from the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university are also involved with the project in data-driven machine learning models are built to make predictions and estimations for whats to come in any given data set one important field within machine learning is classification which allows a data set to be assessed by an algorithm and then classified or broken down into classes or categories when the data sets provided are very small it can be very challenging to not only build a classification model based on this data but also to evaluate the performance of this model ensuring its accuracy this is where transfer learning comes into play in transfer learning we try to transfer knowledge or bring data from another domain to see whether we can enhance the task that we are doing in the domain of interest or target domain maddouri explained the target domain is where the models are built and their performance is evaluated the source domain is a separate domain that is still relevant to the target domain from which knowledge is transferred to make the analysis within the target domain easier maddouris project utilizes a joint prior density to model the relatedness between the source and target domains and offers a bayesian approach to apply the transfer learning principles to provide an overall error estimator of the models an error estimator will deliver an estimate of how accurate these machine-learning models are at classifying the data sets at hand what this means is that before any data is observed the team creates a model using their initial inferences about the model parameters in the target and source domains and then updates this model with enhanced accuracy as more evidence or information about the data sets becomes available this technique of transfer learning has been used to build models in previous works; however no one has ever before used this transfer learning technique to propose novel error estimators to evaluate the performance of these models for an efficient utilization the devised estimator has been implemented using advanced statistical methods that enabled a fast screening of source data sets which enhances the computational complexity of the transfer learning process by 10 to 20 times this technique can help serve as a benchmark for future research within academia to build upon in addition it can help with identifying or classifying different medical issues that would otherwise be very difficult for example maddouri utilized this technique to classify patients with schizophrenia using transcriptomic data from brain tissue samples originally acquired by invasive brain biopsies because of the nature and the location of the brain region that can be analyzed for this disorder the data collected is very limited however using a stringent feature selection procedure that comprises differential gene expression analysis and statistical testing for assumptions validity the research team identified transcriptomic profiles of three genes from an additional brain region found to be highly relevant to the desired brain tissue as reported by independent research studies from other literature this knowledge allowed them to utilize the transfer learning technique to leverage samples collected from the second brain region (source domain) to help with the analysis and significantly boost the accuracy of diagnosis within the original brain region (target domain) the data gathered from the source domain can be exploratory in the absence of information from the target domain allowing the research team to enhance the quality of their conclusion this research has been funded by the department of energy and the national science foundation and was published in the january issue of patterns a new open-access journal by cell press that publishes groundbreaking research findings in data science
currently there is little research focused on understanding mechanisms and drug discovery of lymphatic vascular diseases however conditions such as lymphedema a buildup of fluid in the body when the lymph system is damaged impact more than 200 000 people every year in the united states alone dr abhishek jain assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has taken his expertise in organ-on-chip models and applied them to a field theyve never been used in before creating the first lymphangion-chip to engineer this new device jains team first developed a new technique to create microfluidic cylindrical blood or lymphatic vessels consisting of endothelial cells which line blood vessels it could then use this technique to create a co-cultured multicellular lymphangion the functional unit of a lymph vessel and successfully recreate a typical section of a lymphatic transport vessel in vitro or outside the body we can now better understand how mechanical forces regulate lymphatic physiology and pathophysiology jain said we can also understand what are the mechanisms that result in lymphedema and then we can find new targets for drug discovery with this platform the project is in collaboration with dr david zawieja from the texas a&m college of medicine their research was recently published in the journal lab on a chip collaborations with dr zawieja and others in the department played a crucial role jain said they introduced me to this topic and provide their longstanding expertise that has made it possible for us to create this new organ-on-chip platform and now advance it in these exciting directions using contemporary experimental models jain said the impact of this work is far-reaching because there is a new hope for patients with lymphatic diseases they can now learn about the biology of these diseases and reach a point where they can be treated the most exciting part of this research is that it is allowing us to now push the organ-on-chip in directions where finding cures for rare and orphan (understudied) diseases is possible with less effort and money jain said we can help the pharma industry to invest in this platform and find a cure for lymphedema that impacts millions of people
"manufacturing limitations affect the development of products and technologies ranging from pharmaceuticals and health care to energy harvesting semiconductors and biotechnology stifling innovation with high costs small build areas and slow production times researchers at texas a&m university are seeking to implement a new method of manufacturing 3d nanostructured surfaces consisting of multiple materials by using a high-throughput high-precision technique dr dorrin jarrahbashi assistant professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is part of a team recently awarded a three-year grant from the national science foundation to continue their pursuit of the advancement ""the created technology can be used in multiple applications and expedite the technological advances in sectors where cost or low-speed production inhibits manufacturing multifunctional nanostructured components "" said jarrahbashi jarrahbashi is working alongside co-principal investigator dr amir asadi assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution ""the results from this research will equip multiple us industries with a new scalable manufacturing technique and thus benefit the us economy and society with increased domestic job opportunities and more public access to smart technology "" said asadi"
"jarrahbashi said that the team has established a new in-house spray-deposition manufacturing technique it uses supercritical carbon dioxide (co2) to assist with atomization and create very fine and uniform micron-size droplets containing nanoparticles by engineering the self-assembly of multiple materials inside the deposited droplets they can fabricate multifunctional nanostructured components all without the need for costly preparations or the use of hazardous solvents the new process will allow for large-scale reduced-cost fast manufacturing of 3d nanostructured surfaces with sizes ranging from a micrometer to a centimeter examples of functional coating applications include wearable electronics smart textiles and paints antennas and electronic devices the use of this new spray deposition technique along with the combination of multiple materials including polymer carbonaceous and ceramic nanomaterials and tailored patterns is also expected to enable new levels of multifunctionality ""nanostructured surfaces often fabricated by depositing and patterning nanomaterials on desired substrates are essential to provide functionalities such as structural electrical thermal magnetic optical and audio in many devices "" asadi said ""this project supports the development of a manufacturing process that enables scalable and high-precision manufacturing of multifunctional nanostructured surfaces with multiple materials without the need for costly preparations or use of hazardous solvents"" the team is seeking to overcome the challenges of current methods such as slow and costly treatments and a narrow selection of materials limited by compatibility and small build areas their proposed method focuses on the use of nontoxic water co2 and pristine nanomaterials that can be integrated into existing manufacturing lines or additive manufacturing stations to integrate large volumes of nanomaterials with high precision the team has filed a patent on this developed technology and expects to start a semi-industrial manufacturing line to start producing new sensors based on light filtering and functional coating solutions that address the needs of different industry sectors they also plan to enhance the current spray system by designing new nozzles for the supercritical co2-assisted atomization technique to prepare for scalable manufacturing of multifunctional surfaces"
"high-fidelity touch has the potential to significantly expand the scope of what we expect from computing devices making new remote sensory experiences possible the research on these advancements led by a pair of researchers from the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university could help touchscreens simulate virtual shapes dr cynthia hipwell is studying friction at the finger-device level while dr jonathan felts is researching friction in the interaction between single skin cells and the glass of the touchscreen interface the two are bringing together their respective areas of expertise to apply friction principles at the microscopic level to finger-device interaction mechanics hipwell highlighted the significance of the pursuit by comparing it to the technologies currently available for conveying immersive and accurate information through high-fidelity audio and video ""we can view digitally recorded or remotely transmitted audio and video on a screen with great detail "" said hipwell oscar s wyatt jr '45 chair ii professor ""we do not yet have that same capability with touch on a touchscreen imagine you could feel the skin of a snake that lives on another continent or the fabric of clothes you want to buy online"""
"another application of this technology which has received high levels of interest recently is the augmentation of immersive virtual environments such as the proposed metaverse the touch sensations that would be required to really immerse yourself into a reality that is fully digital requires huge advancements in touch perception said felts associate professor and steve brauer jr '02 faculty fellow what weve done is essentially created an entirely new way to modulate the perception of touch that hasnt existed before"" the team is working to show that it is possible to mimic the unique mechanical and thermal sensations associated with different surface textures and shapes their recent publication in the journal science robotics demonstrates the potential for translating these sensations on a touchscreen by using temperature variation alone rather than expressing them through ultrasonic vibrations or electroadhesion methods ""we were actually surprised by the magnitude of the friction increase we were able to achieve "" hipwell said ""its magnitude is competitive with current surface haptic devices meaning that there is another option for friction modulation in surface-haptic device rendering"""
"another exciting development hipwell said is that their research has shown that it is possible to localize the friction to the outer layer of the skin and at least at swipe speeds control friction without making the device feel hot as the research continues felts said many of the questions remaining involve how readily the approach can be incorporated into consumer devices and commercialized ""can it be scaled down can it respond quickly enough can it mimic a wide range of surfaces can it be affordable we think these are fair criticisms yet we look forward to using this phenomenon to improve our basic understanding of haptic feedback and pursuing miniaturization and commercialization avenues "" he said the team is continuing their work to address challenges facing the approach by further exploring the complexities of the finger-device interface and variations that occur due to environmental and skin-property differences they also hope to look at design improvements for miniaturization and integration into touchscreens"
helicobacter pylori (h pylori) have colonized the stomachs of billions of people worldwide once an h pylori infection occurs it is challenging to eradicate this is a significant biomedical problem as h pylori can promote stomach ulcers and gastric cancers how h pylori navigate and colonize specific niches in the stomach remains largely unknown but addressing this gap in fundamental knowledge is crucial for preventing infections moving forward dr pushkar lele associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university recently received an r01 research grant from the national institute of general medical sciences totaling over $13 million to investigate the mechanisms that enable h pylori to navigate with the aid of motility appendages called the flagella to do this work his group will combine experimental techniques such as optical trapping and förster resonance energy transfer (fret) with computational modeling inside a bacterium rapid signaling reactions constantly occur to control its movements measuring these reactions is the key to understanding h pyloris navigational strategies however such measurements are incredibly difficult inside a bacterium considering its minuscule size a couple of microns – and the speed at which it moves – almost 30 times its length per second leles group proposes to overcome the challenge by manipulating single bacterial cells through the power of light using what is known as an optical trap the researchers will catch hold of single h pylori cells and release them at distinct separations from their chemical targets to observe their navigational strategies they will develop fret assays to visualize signaling interactions in these cells bacteria rely on numerous signaling mechanisms to adapt their behavior to environmental conditions said lele the pathway we are interested in specifically helps them migrate from an unfavorable location to a favorable environment a process known as chemotaxis how do h pylori sense and respond to environmental cues despite appearing to lack key enzymes in their arsenal there has never been a more opportune time to tackle these important questions in collaboration with renowned research groups in the field the proposed work will build on the groups previous efforts funded by the cancer prevention and research institute of texas in a study published in elife last year researchers developed a novel method to quantify the effect of the environment by exploiting fluid drag on each bacterium their approach helped them characterize the properties of individual motors that operate the flagella the manner in which h pylori swim causes them to retrace their movements every other second nullifying the progress they might have made in the preceding second this complicates the understanding of chemotaxis said lele the group plans to tackle these questions by combining experiments with theory and computation their movements are erratic said lele nonetheless they can be computationally simulated with adequate inputs from experiments rigorous experimental tests of their mathematical models are expected to help unravel major mysteries and predict the probability of infections in the future the proposed research is timely as studies have shown an increased resistance in h pylori to standard treatments if the principles of navigation can be understood using these methods there is potential to discover better ways to eradicate or treat h pylori infections as h pylori continue to become resistant to antibiotics such mechanistic studies on the different facets of host invasion and colonization will address critical medical needs lele said chemotaxis strategies are well understood in only a few bacterial species and successful execution of our projects will provide insights into the diverse strategies employed by pathogens to evade our immune systems
with the goal of ensuring that innovative technology- and science-based ideas become a reality the texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) is entering its eighth year with a new cash award the winners circle legacy prize in its first seven years the competition successfully generated and awarded $24 million in seed funding to support texas-based companies with high growth potential these funds have helped more than 40 finalists execute their ideas and advance product development now these winners want to contribute a portion of their success to fellow entrepreneurs competing in the 2022 competition this may
as a past competitor and direct beneficiary of the texas a&m new ventures competitions generosity it is spark biomedicals pleasure to give back to the community that gave so much to us said daniel powell co-founder president and chief executive officer of spark biomedical tnvc is building a special community of entrepreneurs and innovators that we are proud to be part of powell won the 2019 competition and spearheaded the initiative to pool funds together among previous winners with eight companies contributing in total the winners circle legacy prize offers an added opportunity for finalists to win seed funding in the form of cash beyond the main prize pool for the development of new or advanced technology the 2022 winners circle legacy prize includes sizable sponsorships from gaitiq elemental coatings ictero medical koda health m&s biotics sano chemicals spark biomedical and starling medical we are so proud of this new award not only because of its direct impact on the companies the cash will help at a time when they need it most but also because it speaks to the impact of the competition itself said chris scotti director of new ventures at texas a&m innovation partners and chair of the tnvc committee these companies benefitted from and believe in tnvc to the extent they are willing to write checks back to a new generation of texas best startups and this is only the beginning as our pool of winners and their companies grow we believe the award will grow as well feeding a continuous cycle of innovation and entrepreneurship so important to our societytnvc was founded in 2015 to promote the commercialization of emerging technology and provide a pathway for entrepreneurs to successfully complete the journey from concept to marketplace led by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations office of commercialization and entrepreneurship in partnership with texas a&m innovation partners the texas a&m university system and generous sponsors the competition continues to nurture the states entrepreneurial ecosystem by attracting a wide variety of technology innovations and companies that span the state of texas twenty companies representing industry within the health care manufacturing energy agriculture infrastructure and cybersecurity market segments will compete for a finalist position at the two-day in-person competition the total prize pool is expected to exceed $500 000 each company will have the chance to earn one of six awards for the main prize one of five for the elevator pitch and a host of other prizes including the winners' circle legacy prize where winners are selected by the sponsors to learn more about the teas a&m new ventures competition and the opportunity to become a sponsor visit the texas a&m new ventures website
messages like this item is unavailable due to quality recalls and supply chain disruptions are becoming a common occurrence for customers of many businesses in the united states to help solve this problem 5g technology is poised to offer manufacturers the ability to make rapid real-time decisions bridging existing gaps in the nations industrial base5g is a new global wireless network that is designed to virtually connect all people and all devices for manufacturers the increased bandwidth allows high-capacity information flow resulting in faster conversations between machines and fewer communication delaysincorporating 5g will provide much more timely actionable information decisions in the manufacturing enterprises can be made in real-time with little delays said dr satish bukkapatnam professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering at the texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station institute for manufacturing systems the timely information greatly reduces the lag between inception of data and decisionsadditionally 5g will aid in what bukkapatnam calls the uber-zation of manufacturing much like a customer would order an uber to take them to their destination 5g tech will enable companies or industry segments to treat manufacturing like a custom service to receive needed productsthis is one area in which smart manufacturing will be heavily involved in the years to come bukkapatnam said5g could be highly valuable in the production of semiconductors (devices included in various kinds of electronics like diodes transistors and integrated circuits) where complex components are manufactured across multiple machinesin these high-quality and high-end manufacturing environments there will be hundreds of sensors helping monitor the process from beginning to end bukkapatnam said these sensors generate massive amounts of data each day more data than what current enterprise data handling solutions can actually handlemuch of this data is analyzed long after problems have already surfaced bukkapatnam continued with 5g faster decisions are communicated back to sources opening up new possibilities for more efficient decision making this level of automation is going to be a key facilitator for applying artificial intelligence methods in industrial environments as data can be processed locally or in the cloud and with different kinds of computers and controllers in different geographic locations5g will be an important asset for manufacturing conglomerates who are interested in leading the transformation of the industry with a large industry shift toward internet of things (physical objects with sensors processing ability software and other technologies that connect and exchange data) digitization and digitalized operations harnessing data and effective decision making will become increasingly significantclearly articulating the return on investment of a 5g system in a manufacturing environment is currently a major challenge as the industry has yet to fully embrace this technology bukkapatnam said its our job to establish clear context for implementing 5g and determining what types of data should be fused what decisions should be made and what kind of timeliness or delays are tolerable
capturing and storing carbon dioxide (co2) deep underground can help combat climate change but long-term monitoring of the stored co2 within a geological storage site is difficult using current physics-based methods texas a&m university researchers proved that unsupervised machine-learning methods could analyze the sensor-gathered data from a geological carbon-storage site and rapidly depict the underground co2 plume locations and movements over time lowering the risk of an unregistered co2 escapeproject lead dr siddharth misra the ted h smith jr 75 and max r vordenbaum 73 dvg associate professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering used seed money from the texas a&m energy institute to begin the researchthe project was designed to facilitate long-term co2 storage at low risk said misra current physics-driven models are time consuming to produce and assume where the co2 is in a storage site we are letting the data tell us where the co2 actually is we are also providing rapid visualization because if you cannot see the co2 you cannot control it deep undergroundincreasing levels of co2 in the atmosphere raise global temperatures because the gas absorbs heat radiating from the earth releases it back to the earth over a long time and stays in the atmosphere far longer than other greenhouse gasessince more co2 exists than can be easily filtered out by earths natural processes its essential to keep it out of the air by other means sequestering the unwanted gas underground isnt new but monitoring its presence within a geological site is challenging because co2 is invisible quickly moves through cracks and escapes without detectioncurrent physics-driven models rely on statistics or numerical calculations that match known physical laws backed by research results however the latest geological sensors yield an enormous amount of data suggesting a lot of variety exists in subsurface compositions than was previously thought physics-driven models dont include the information because such variations arent fully understood but misra knew that data contained knowledge useful to the situationmisra and keyla gonzalez his graduate researcher began by showing where the co2 was spatially since the entire subsurface data set had to be mined for clues they used unsupervised machine learning to locate the co2 unlike supervised machine learning where computer algorithms are taught which data will answer a specific question unsupervised learning uses algorithms to sift through data to find patterns that relate to the parameters of a problem when no definite answers to a question exist yet
first the algorithms assessed the presence of co2 in the data using five broad or qualitative ranges from very high concentrations down to zero traces of it colors identified each range for a 2d visual representation with the brightest color for the highest content and black for no co2 these generalizations sped up pinpointing the plume's location how much area it covered and its approximate size shape and densitythe algorithms learned several workflow methods to read data and model the co2 misra and gonzalez couldnt rely on only one method to find the right answer because using unsupervised learning meant no real solution to the problem existed yet and any answer found would have to be confirmed rigorously so each answer was compared against the others similar results proved the solutions were unique to finding only the co2 no matter which methods were used
more data was needed to track the movement of the co2 through time so the algorithms were taught to sift through and evaluate data in different formats such as crosswell seismic tomography because the algorithms were already geared to a purely data-driven approach and visualized on a general level the spatial-temporal maps were quickly generated no matter what information was used again similar results proved the researchers were on the right trackmisra and gonzalez published a paper on the research in the journal expert systems with applications gonzalez has graduated and took a position with tgs an international energy data and intelligence company that was impressed with the workthe next step will be the combination of rapid prediction rapid visualization and real-time decision making something the us department of energy is interested in said misra even though the work was hard and required a lot of confirmation to validate i can see so much potential in research like this many more applications and breakthroughs are possible unsupervised learning takes more effort but gives so much insight
its been 50 years since man walked on the moon in those 50 years astronauts have primarily explored low earth orbit now that nasa is preparing to return to the moon its time to reevaluate the practicality of the spacesuit dr ana diaz artiles assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and graduate student logan kluis have been working on developments for the smartsuit a new spacesuit architecture that would create a safer and better spacesuit environment for extravehicular activity (eva) on planetary surfacesthe smartsuit is a spacesuit architecture proposed by diaz artiles that focuses on three key improvements to the current suit design; increased mobility enhanced safety and informed interaction between the environment and the astronaut most recently diaz artiles and kluis in collaboration with dr robert shepherd associate professor at cornell university have been developing prototypes of soft-robotics assistive actuators for the knee joints the current spacesuit has been designed for microgravity conditions; in these conditions astronauts dont need to walk or move around using their lower body they typically translate themselves using their upper body said diaz artiles now when you are on a planetary surface astronauts are going to need to walk bend kneel pick rocks and many other similar activities that require a better mobility in the lower bodythe soft-robotic knee prototypes they have developed work by using gas pressure to expand the internal chambers so that they push against each other as each one expands the actuator bends and by using a soft material the actuator forms to the human body creating a more comfortable fit and potentially reducing the risk of injury soft-robotics would allow the actuators to conform to the astronauts body greatly increasing their comfort compared to more rigid hard surface actuators said kluis
being inside the current spacesuit is like being inside a pressurized balloon the astronaut has to fight against the suit which is not only difficult but expends energy that astronauts will want to conserve when conducting eva missions that energy spent moving against the suit contributes to the metabolic cost which the assistive robotic actuators would be able to reduce by 15% based on simulations specifically developed to investigate the effects of these actuatorsif youre out collecting samples and doing tests you spend a lot of energy said kluis so when we go to missions like the moon and mars were either going to have to bring all that food or were going to have to grow it so any sort of savings you can have on that energy would be very helpfultheir recent work focused on actuators for the knee joints but ultimately their objective is to integrate actuators into a full-body layer enhancing motion in several body joints that layer would press relatively hard against the astronaut providing extra mechanical counterpressure (mcp) which increases mobilitypressure and mobility have an inverse relationship said diaz artiles the more pressure you have in the spacesuit the lower the mobility the less pressure you have the easier it is to move aroundthis pressure refers to the gas pressure the spacesuit provides to protect the wearer the pressure of the atmosphere is about 147 pounds per square inch (psi) the current spacesuit provides about 43 psi which pushes against the astronauts body and contributes to the balloon effect but if a full-body soft-robotic layer could provide 10 psi for example that would lower the amount needed for the suit to only 33 psi: less pressure and more mobilityimagine wearing a really tight under armour or really tight leggings that pressure pushing down on your body would be in replace of or in addition to gas pressure said kluis so the idea with the smartsuit is that it would use both mechanical pressure and gas pressure
another benefit to using mcp is that it could also lower the risk of decompression sickness (dcs) dcs can happen when the gas pressure surrounding us decreases relatively fast so the nitrogen in our bodies emerge as bubbles inside our body tissues the current solution to avoiding dcs within the spacesuit consists of breathing pure oxygen for up to four hours before conducting an eva by implementing mcp astronauts can spend less time on prebreathe requirements and more time on the exploration without extra concern of dcsdiaz artiles and her team continue to work on the smartsuit architecture and the actuator prototypes are a promising development in creating a more accommodating and resourceful spacesuit for future planetary missions their end goal would be for it to feel like the wearer is moving without the spacesuit on and without breaking too much of a sweatspacesuits are directly related to space travel which is exciting and theyre at the forefront of that said kluis so its always fun getting to work on new technologies that can be implemented or be part of that evolution into the next spacesuit the results of their research were published in npj microgravity aerospace medicine and human performance and at the 50th international conference of environmental systems
fiber-reinforced thermoplastics (ie thermoplastic composites) are emerging in industries as a replacement for metals due to their durability and lightweight composition however achieving high levels of both strength and toughness in thermoplastic composites is challenging hindering their ability to be manufactured at fast ratesfunded by the national science foundations (nsf) faculty early career development (career) award dr amir asadi assistant professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university has developed a method using hybrid nanomaterials capable of creating high-performance thermoplastic composites with favorable mechanical properties within minutes
fiber-reinforced thermoplastics are replacing metals at high rates because of their inherent properties they are light strong recyclable and malleable they can be used in various applications including manufacturing automobile and aerospace industries because they are both cost-effective and sustainablewith the premise that a 10% reduction in vehicle weight leads to a 6%-8% increase in fuel efficiency and a 325-kilogram reduction in its annual carbon dioxide emission this project provides a scalable solution to compete with the manufacturing of metal parts in automotive industries said asadi in addition this project addresses the need for reduced weight and cost of manufacturing in aerospace economically justifying manufacturing small aerial vehicles for imaging radars surveillance and deliveries it also accelerates certification of fast-rate manufactured composites for commercial aircrafthigh-performance thermoplastic composites are usually semi-crystalline containing both crystalline and amorphous regions in polymers crystals are the regions that the polymer chains are in a specific order and amorphous regions are those with random structureshowever thermoplastic makeup presents a paradox: it will be brittle if strength is improved by increasing the number of crystals but if the brittleness is addressed by having more amorphous regions the strength decreases significantly a fast-rate manufacturing process would induce this paradox due to the quick heating and cooling process that does not allow enough time for crystals to form thus making it difficult to produce strong thermoplasticsachieving structures with properties that act against each other is challenging said asadi however these structures exist in nature for example an elephant trunk is strong enough to lift hundreds of pounds is stiff in fights but also soft flexible and delicate enough to handle small vegetables simultaneously it serves versatile functionalities such as communication drinking and showering the key for these incredible functions is the intricate microstructure of the trunk which we can look to as an example of how we can achieve paradoxical properties in one structureto meet this challenge the researchers proposed engineering the crystalline-amorphous microstructure during manufacturing using hybrid nanomaterials these nanomaterials can tailor the crystals into the desired architecture by controlling nucleation growth orientation and the size distribution of crystals developing the microstructure during production produces a thermoplastic composite that is both strong and fracture resistanttheir new method could potentially produce fiber-reinforced thermoplastics at faster rates and lower costs in addition it could present a scalable solution capable of competing against metals in manufacturing this project accelerates the manufacturing platforms that could benefit the united states economy and national security by equipping automotive aerospace and marine industries with a fast-rate manufacturing technique said asadi in the future the researchers will look to provide physical evidence that their manufacturing process mirrors their molecular simulations to accomplish this task they are collaborating with the air force research laboratory to determine whether their research findings will be compatible with manufacturing processes the nsf career program supports early-career faculty who show potential in the academic community and strive to advance the goals of their department or organization
"as an extra layer of security several online services have adopted push notification-based two-factor authentication systems whereby users must approve login attempts through a mobile device in current authentication systems especially the ""tap to approve"" approach there is no explicit link that indicates correspondence between the user's browser session and the notification they receive on their device this vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker to address this issue a team of researchers that includes dr nitesh saxena professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university has designed new easy-to-use methods to counter the vulnerabilities in push notification-based two-factor authentication systems ""the mechanisms we designed have a similar usability to the original push notification-based authentication method but they improve security against concurrent login attacks "" said saxena ""if a user receives two notifications the notification that corresponds to the browser's session of the attacker will differ therefore the user should be able to detect that something is amiss and not accept the wrong notification"" the team's paper describing the research was published in the proceedings from the 2021 institute of electrical and electronics engineers' european symposium on security and privacy (euros&p) one of the premier venues presenting cutting-edge cybersecurity research push notifications are clickable pop-up messages sent directly to a user's mobile or desktop device via an installed application they can appear at any time and show various things such as the weather breaking news missed calls or text messages reminders etc they can also be utilized as second-factor authentication (or password-less authentication) which works as an additional layer of security to protect users' online accounts from attackers with push notification authentication a push notification is sent directly to a mobile device usually a smartphone registered to an online account alerting the user that a login attempt is taking place the user can then review the notification details and either approve or deny the request by tapping a button one of the main advantages of this method is that it's a simple way to authenticate login attempts that don't require the users to remember and manage complex passwords for their accounts over the past few years there's been a sharp increase in the adoption of push notification-based authentication systems like duo-push and authy they have also been commercially adopted by major software and service companies like google twitter and several academic entities while this method is fundamentally more user-friendly than the one-time password method it contains several security risks one of which is called a concurrency attack introduced in saxena's research"
"during this type of attack a malicious actor will acquire a user's password and launch a login session simultaneously as the primary user gaining access to the user's login credentials if the attacker and user log in simultaneously the user's device will receive two ""push to approve"" notifications because there is no fundamental difference between the two notifications they could unknowingly accept the attacker's notification giving them access to sensitive information (banking school etc) an early solution the researchers developed which is mentioned in their european symposium on security and privacy paper consisted of using a random four-digit number the user would have to compare and match to accept the notification with this type of approach however there's a high chance that they will not look at it close enough and accept the attacker's notification ""there is a large amount of literature in the usability security community showing that people don't pay attention to these security notifications warnings and things of that nature "" said saxena ""they bypass them by pressing the ok button so that they can connect and pursue their main task they don't anticipate an attack so we didn't want to use this method"" to address this design flaw the researchers designed a new method called replicate with replicate users need to approve the login attempt by replicating a randomized interaction presented on the browser session over on the login notification explicitly binding the notification to the user's browser session for example the user would be instructed to drag a key icon in a particular direction in one interaction in another interaction the user would be shown colored buttons and press the correct one while the interactions are simple to perform they will prevent a concurrency attack from occurring because the interaction required to validate the user's session will differ from the interaction the attacker will be required to perform to approve their session to test the effectiveness of the interface the team conducted a usability study with 40-50 participants where they evaluated and compared its efficacy to the ""just tap"" method they found that the study participants could successfully carry out the simple tasks efficiently with little to no errors ""if the attacker were to log in at the same time to carry out an attack against this method they wouldn't succeed because the user is matching their browser session with the notification and wouldn't be able to accept the attacker notification "" said saxena in addition to studying replicate's effectiveness with a larger study group to better measure its usability and adaptability in practice the researchers want to increase the randomness of the process of matching the browser session with the notification ""for example when you look at the number of options for the key drag interaction the randomness involved in this process is very low if the user receives two notifications one saying 'drag it up' and the other 'drag it down ' the user could pick the attacker's notification perform that operation and accept it although we did not see it in the study there's still a small possibility that it could happen so that would be one thing we need to solve"" saxena also recently received a grant from the national science foundation to study the security and usability of push-based two-factor authentication systems and potential security vulnerabilities contributors to this line of research include mohammed jubur the university of alabama birmingham; prakash shrestha jay prakash clarice chua qing yuy silence laboratories singapore; tanvi ravindra thombre andrei bytes lucienne blessing jianying zhou tony quek singapore university of technology and design singapore"
threatcasting aims to converge widely varied perspectives into a cohesive story around a possible scenario and a set of affected stakeholders developed by brian david johnson a futurist and professor at arizona state university it provides data to anticipate a future state or outcome and all the variables that must occur for that state or outcome to become reality
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
ammonia is commonly used in fertilizer because it has the highest nitrogen content of commercial fertilizers making it essential for crop production however two carbon dioxide molecules are made for every molecule of ammonia produced contributing to excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere a team from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university consisting of dr abdoulaye djire assistant professor and graduate student denis johnson has furthered a method to produce ammonia through electrochemical processes helping to reduce carbon emissions this research aims to replace the haber-bosch thermochemical process with an electrochemical process that is more sustainable and safer for the environment the researchers recently published their findings in nature scientific reports since the early 1900s the haber-bosch process has been used to produce ammonia this process works by reacting atmospheric nitrogen with hydrogen gas a downside of the haber-bosch process is that it requires high pressure and high temperature leaving a large energy footprint the method also requires hydrogen feedstock which is derived from nonrenewable resources it is not sustainable and has negative implications on the environment expediting the need for new and environmentally friendly processes the researchers have proposed using the electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (nrr) to produce ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and water the benefits of using an electrochemical method include using water to provide protons and the ability to produce ammonia at ambient temperature and pressure this process would potentially require lower amounts of energy and would be less costly and more environmentally friendly than the haber-bosch process the nrr works by using an electrocatalyst for this process to succeed nitrogen must bond to the surface and break apart to produce ammonia in this study the researchers used mxene a titanium nitride as the electrocatalyst what differentiates this catalyst from others is that nitrogen is already in its structure allowing for more efficient ammonia formulation its easier for ammonia to form because the protons can attach to the nitrogen in the structure form the ammonia and then the ammonia will leave out of the structure said johnson a hole is made in the structure that can pull the nitrogen gas in and separate the triple bond the researchers found that using titanium nitride induces a mars-van krevelen mechanism a popular mechanism for hydrocarbon oxidation this mechanism follows a lower energy pathway that would allow for higher ammonia production rates and selectivity because of the nitrogen from the titanium nitride catalyst without modifications to the materials the researchers reached a selectivity of 20% which is the ratio of the desired product formed compared to the undesired product formed their method could potentially reach a higher selectivity percentage with modifications forging a new pathway to ammonia production through electrochemical processes the department of energy has set a goal of a selectivity of 60% which is a challenging number to reach said johnson we were able to reach 20% using our material showcasing a method that we might be able to take advantage of moving forward if we upgrade our material can we reach 60% soon that is the question we will continue to work to answer this research could potentially reduce the carbon footprint and global energy usage on a larger scale in the future this could be a major scientific reform said djire about 2% of the worlds total energy is used for ammonia production reducing that huge number would drastically reduce our carbon footprint and energy consumption this study was funded by the startup research fund other contributors to the publication are eric kelley from the chemical engineering department at texas a&m brock hunter from auburn university and jevaun christie and cullan king from prairie view a&m university
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
"hypersonic weapons are a strategic part of us defense measures and countries worldwide are adopting this technology however hypersonic capabilities arent exclusive to national security efforts there are countless applications for hypersonics within the commercial and defense markets and businesses are rapidly investing in this emerging industry hypersonic weapons and aircraft travel at least five times the speed of sound (or around 3 500 miles per hour) which is roughly los angeles to new york city in less than 45 minutes researchers from texas a&m university and collaborators from across the country are working with the department of defense (dod) to lead the charge in developing innovations in hypersonics technology the joint hypersonic transition office (jhto) [within the dod] has been given the charge from congress to transition hypersonic technologies to systems more effectively and to assure the future workforce is prepared said dr gillian bussey inaugural director of the jhto in the office of the under secretary of defense research and engineering advanced capabilities the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) is designed to help accomplish this both through applied research and activities targeting the development of this unique community ucah is a five-year $100-million program to unite numerous universities labs and industry partners in hypersonics applied research ucah was established at texas a&m in 2020 and is managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) under the direction of dr rodney bowersox associate dean for research and regents and ford i professor of aerospace engineering ucah is facilitating applied research from us universities for hypersonic projects sponsored by the dod which includes many industry partners as hypersonics research is complicated and costly these partnerships are key to applied research breakthroughs and equipping a workforce that is still underdeveloped establishing ucah at texas a&m leverages the seasoned program management expertise of tees and the extensive hypersonic research capabilities of our faculty said bowersox a field as broad and complex as hypersonics requires expertise from a variety of areas from materials scientists to aerospace and mechanical engineers to fabricators and mechanics hypersonics brings together different fields and technologies that are usually disparate said dr richard miles professor in the department of aerospace engineering and university distinguished chair at texas a&m and because everything is going so fast it is also interacting which poses challenges with things like heat flow of air and shock waves this incremental method of testing is used at the texas a&m aerospace laboratory for lasers and electromagnetics and optics (allemo) where simulations and computational models are created to predict outcomes in hypersonics conditions this testing pinpoints specific data and is more cost-effective than sending a fully constructed hypersonic craft through hypersonic conditions at texas a&m there is a rich tradition of cross-college collaboration for example the texas a&m university national aerothermochemistry and hypersonics laboratory has been providing an interdisciplinary venue to improve knowledge and control of non-equilibrium gaseous flows and their surface interactions for almost 20 years in this laboratory researchers from aerospace engineering chemistry physics and mechanical engineering work side-by-side to solve challenging problems in hypersonics which provides unique research and educational experiences another texas a&m university system multidisciplinary testing facility currently under construction at the george hw bush combat development complex (bcdc) is the ballistic aero-optics and materials (bam) test range bam will be a large-scale fully enclosed multidisciplinary research and development facility capable of evaluating high-energy laser propagation hypersonic aerothermodynamics and hypervelocity impact response of materials and structures once completed the bam test range will be the largest and most fully instrumented facility of its kind in the united states this facility will provide unique realistic flight test and evaluation opportunities for faculty research scientists and students ""the dod and defense industry are highly interested in the unique capabilities the bam test range will provide for both hypersonic ground flight and directed energy testing "" said ret major general tim green bcdc director ""the bcdc team is proud and excited to have the opportunity to support the texas a&m systems commitment to national security innovation as the bam test range opens and takes its place among the nations critical experimentation and testing facilities"" as we develop the workforce essential for the realization of new hypersonic capabilities it is important to understand that this includes the current workforce moving into hypersonic programs the craft force that builds our systems and students who represent the future workforce said dr john schmisseur hap arnold chair and ucah workforce development committee lead from the university of tennessee space institute academia is well-equipped to train all three of these groups but we need to think about how to do it efficiently this motivates us to explore new nontraditional options such as certificate programs and short courses"
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
the engineering genesis (eg) award for multidisciplinary research was presented to 27 texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers and their teams on march 29 during the 2021-22 faculty awards ceremony also honored were recipients of faculty awards and 2022 faculty investitures the eg award which is presented to tees researchers who have secured significant research grants of $1 million or more was given to the following: pi: victor ugaz chemical engineering $1 million grant from the wm keck foundation for spontaneous protocell assembly and origin of life in hydrothermal pores pi: stefan hurlebaus civil and environmental engineering co-pis: homero castaneda-lopez materials science and engineering; joseph bracci civil and environmental engineering $1 million grant from the department of energy for building health bays and cells aging study pi: vladislav v yakovlev biomedical engineering co-pis: girish agarwal biological and agricultural engineering; marlan scully aerospace engineering $1 million grant from the department of defense-air force-office of scientific research for quantum coherence and quantum interactions in microtubules and surrounding environment pi: feng zhao biomedical engineering $11 million grant from the department of health and human services-national institutes of health-national heart lung and blood institute for engineered anisotropic and vascularized human cardiac patch pi: shuiwang ji computer science and engineering $12 million grant from the national institutes of health for genetics of deep-learning-derived neuroimaging endophenotypes for alzheimers disease pi: craig marianno nuclear engineering multidisciplinary engineering and deputy director center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives co-pi: sunil chirayath nuclear engineering and director center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives $13 million grant from the department of energy for dtra technical assistance program for amity university pi: gerard coté biomedical engineering and director center for remote health technologies and systems co-pis: keith biggers interim director texas a&m center for applied technology; james wall former executive director texas a&m center for applied technology; john hanks biomedical engineering; jeffrey cirillo microbial pathogenesis and immunology $13 million grant from the department of defense-defense threat reduction agency for notification of toxic exposure (note) pi: hamid toliyat electrical and computer engineering co-pis: dion antao jonathan felts jaime grunlan and bryan rasmussen mechanical engineering; prasad enjeti electrical and computer engineering; moble benedict aerospace engineering; patrick shamberger materials science and engineering $14 million grant from the department of energy-advanced research projects agency-energy (arpa-e) for multi-physical co-design of next-generation axial motors for aerospace applications pi: danny davis the bush school of government and public service $14 million grant from the department of defense-national security agency for senior military colleges cyber grant program pi: felipe guzman aerospace engineering $14 million grant from the department of defense for optomechanical gravimeters and gradiometers pi: mladen kezunovic electrical and computer engineering co-pi: alexander brown economics $14 million grant from the national science foundation for scc-irg track 1: advanced learning for energy risk tracking (alert) pi: srikanth (sri) saripalli mechanical engineering co-pis: james hubbard jr zohaib hasnain swaroop darbha swaminathan gopalswamy michael walsh jn reddy vinayak krishnamurthy and justin wilkerson mechanical engineering; dylan shell computer science and engineering; srinivas shakkottai electrical and computer engineering; and panganamala kumar electrical and computer engineering industrial and systems engineering $16 million grant from the department of defense-army research office for distributed autonomous robotic experiments and simulations (dares) (iia9 army artificial intelligence task force (aitf) research interests) pi: raymundo arróyave materials science and engineering co-pis: xiaoning qian electrical and computer engineering; ibrahim karaman materials science and engineering $18 million grant from the national science foundation for dmref: ai-guided accelerated discovery of multi-principal element multi-functional alloys pi: diane hurtado senior associate vice chancellor for national laboratories and national security strategic initiatives $18 million grant from the department of energy-national nuclear security administration for triad: hr-its technical and programmatic support pi: arum han electrical and computer engineering co-pis: won-bo shim plant pathology and microbiology; xuejun zhu and qing sun chemical engineering $2 million grant from national science foundation for efri e3p: high-throughput synthetic biology approaches for mixed plastic degradation and reutilization pi: diane hurtado senior associate vice chancellor for national laboratories and national security strategic initiatives $2 million grant from the department of energy-national nuclear security administration for triad: hr-its technical and programmatic support for emergency management and continuity operations pi: duncan maitland biomedical engineering co-pis: daniel alge and mary mcdougall biomedical engineering; steven wright electrical and computer engineering $24 million grant from the national institutes for health for biopsy tract sealing device with magnetic resonance and x-ray image contrast pi: ya wang mechanical engineering co-pis: rahul srinivasan neuroscience and experimental therapeutics; shoshana eitan psychological and brain sciences; and ying li mechanical engineering $26 million grant from the national science foundation for gcr: programmable nanorobots integration with magnetically driven neuron and brain tissue regeneration pi: mark kimber nuclear engineering $3 million grant from the department of energy for 2021 university award base - integrated university program - fellowship and scholarship cooperative agreement pi: tanmay lele biomedical engineering and chemical engineering $31 million grant from the department of health and human services-national institutes of health-national cancer institute for nuclear dysfunction in cancer: the role of mechanical stresses transmitted by the linc complex pi: haithem abu-rub electrical engineering and managing director smart grid center qatar co-pis: riccardo bettati computer science and engineering; sunil khatri narasimha annapareddy miroslav begovic and ali ghrayeb electrical and computer engineering; shady khalil hussein alnuweiri ali ghrayeb and tingwen huang texas a&m university at qatar $32 million grant from the qatar national research fund (qnrf) for multi-layer cybersecurity and situational awareness to enhance resiliency in qatars power grid pi: maria koliou civil and environmental engineering co-pis: james kaihatu civil and environmental engineering and ocean engineering; anand puppala and petros sideris civil and environmental engineering; siyu yu and michelle meyer architecture $41 million grant from the national science foundation for focused coastlines and people: fundamental research to inform holistic decision-making for historically underrepresented communities impacted by coastal hazards pi: cindy lawley assistant vice chancellor for academic and outreach programs assistant dean for engineering academies and associate agency director for workforce development and regional divisions co-pis: shelly tornquist director spark! pk-12 engineering education outreach; melissa walden former director engineering professional education; kristi shryock multidisciplinary engineering; rob gorham executive director manufacturing initiatives for texas a&m engineering experiment station and executive director secureamerica institute; dean schneider industrial and systems engineering and operations director secureamerica institute $48 million grant from the department of defense for national imperative for industrial skills pi: tanmay lele biomedical engineering and chemical engineering $5 million grant from the cancer prevention and research institute of texas for nuclear dysmorphia in pediatric cancers pi: reza langari mechanical engineering co-pis: dilma da silva and dezhen song computer science and engineering $7 million grant from the texas department of transportation for ava: automated vehicles for all diamond eg award the diamond eg award presented to researchers who secured research grants of $10 million or more was given to the following: pi: rodney bowersox aerospace engineering and executive director university consortium for applied hypersonics $107 million grant from the department of defense-washington headquarters services for the university consortium for applied hypersonics research relevant to enhancing the mission effectiveness of military personnel and supporting platforms systems components or materials pi: faisal khan chemical engineering and director mary kay oconnor process safety center co-pis: john pappas director center operations and director clean energy incubator; dimitris lagoudas aerospace engineering associate vice chancellor for engineering research senior associate dean for research and deputy director of the texas a&m engineering experiment station; stewart behie chemical engineering associate center director mary kay oconnor process safety center; and m katherine banks president texas a&m university and vice chancellor of national laboratories and national security strategic initiatives the texas a&m university system $388 million grant from the department of interior for operation and maintenance of the ocean energy safety institute (oesi 20)
current methods of defending critical energy infrastructure from multi-stage cyber-physical threats remain largely dependent upon human intervention and compartmentalized monitoring with an emphasis on prevention but how can electric power utilities quickly and effectively respond to anomalous cyber and physical events as early as possible dr katherine davis assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and her research team are utilizing cyber and physical information alongside models with artificial intelligence to provide a solution that helps energy management systems protect themselves with semi-automated real-time data analysis as part of a new project funded through the office of cybersecurity energy security and emergency response in the us department of energy (doe) davis will lead the team in developing a scalable physics-informed and artificial intelligence-enabled cyber-physical intrusion response solution for electric power utilities the project will focus on identifying techniques and scalable working prototypes with the goal of achieving coordinated cyber-physical response of both cyber and physical controls together through hybrid model-based and data-based visibility of events in a secure and reliable testing environment the connections between cyber and physical assets are growing bringing greater risk to both network and physical infrastructure security with expertise in power systems machine learning software development and cybersecurity the multidisciplinary team will develop test and pilot a solution grounded in the real-world utility environment to provide a practical solution for utility companies in response to cyber-physical intrusions one of the key focus areas of this doe-funded project is scalability which emphasizes the importance of translating the algorithms into viable practice and supporting sustainability of the new technology through strategic workforce training and outreach efforts prior to joining texas a&m davis worked for a private entity within the power system industry she values the opportunity to develop a solution that positions energy delivery system providers with trusted capabilities in supporting resiliency through a multi-stage response strategy our research is driven by real industry needs and practice based on the expressed needs of utility service providers in texas and across the nation said davis using our research facilities to create models to serve these providers is the launching pad for developing a solution that offers preventive and reactive measures against cyber-physical intrusion this research builds upon another federally funded project led by davis already underway cyber physical resilient energy systems (cypres) which focuses on the integrated principles of a secure end-to-end system to provide a modeling foundation at the core of next-generation energy management the intrusion response project takes the data and findings from power systems analyzed through cypres to develop an algorithm that can be tested verified and trusted by utility providers as a safeguard to provide and maintain reliable energy distribution to their customer base in its simplest form it is about keeping the lights on powering homes and protecting the cyber-physical infrastructure that enables that process most areas of research place emphasis on protecting and maintaining a power grid system from the perspective of prevention said davis our hope is that these preventive measures are successful but we recognize that sometimes they are not this project leads the development of a multi-stage cyber-physical response mechanism as a critical component of protecting the power system from adversaries at any stage of an incident the importance of this research was recently demonstrated with the colonial pipeline ransomware incident that occurred in may 2021 from just one compromised password the multi-stage intrusion successfully breached the pipelines it system encrypting data and ultimately disrupting the entire us east coasts access to refined oil used primarily for gasoline jet fuel and home heating oil the ramifications of this successful breach were far-reaching and caused a forced proactive shutdown of the pipeline delayed and canceled flights financial investment in external cybersecurity experts and six days of uncertainty for consumers using the resilient energy systems lab a testbed that her group designed and developed within the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center researchers can replicate past scenarios while deploying new technology at different stages of the intrusion this offers an important tool for developing training courses simultaneously curriculum for short courses workshops and continuing education with structured learning outcomes will be developed through the texas a&m engineering extension services cyber readiness center dr ana goulart associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m serves as the co-principal investigator for the three-year $27 million project additional academic and industry collaborators include dr saman zonouz associate professor in electrical and computer engineering at rutgers university; drs rakesh bobba and sibin mohan associate professors in electrical engineering and computer science at oregon state university; dr robin berthier network perception; john camilleri psc consulting; tim simmons tdi; and hala ballouz electric power engineers utility stakeholders include seattle city light bryan texas utilities and the public utilities commission of texas
as the manufacturing industry adopts digitized operations and the industrial internet of things (iiot) sensitive data and online systems become increasingly vulnerable to theft and manipulation secureamerica institute (sai) partners at the university of texas at dallas (ut dallas) are building a trusted execution environment to thwart bad actors and enable end-to-end data protection in smart manufacturing environments as part of sais nationwide initiative to empower a secure domestic manufacturing base with the rise of the iiot (interconnected sensors instruments and other devices networked together through computer applications) smart factories are using iiot technology to automate and monitor manufacturing processes and controlling these processes using networks or web interfaces outside of the workplace as this control moves from analog to digital it becomes more vulnerable to attacks think of this process like unlocking a door physical locks require keys for access but with smart manufacturing technology doors to online systems and data can be unlocked by simply using a smartphone this is why both hardware and software protection are needed our project focuses on protecting data generated by iiot devices so attackers cannot eavesdrop on or steal data from smart factories or manipulate smart manufacturing processes said dr chung hwan kim assistant professor in ut dallass department of computer science bad actors may try and extract data from a manufacturing entity to form an attack that targets specific components of a system or process once sensitive data is collected an attack is deployed through a compromised cloud network or unauthorized network access a well-executed attack could have catastrophic ramifications for us national security for example if the targeted industrial base is a nuclear factory attackers may attempt to destroy the power plant or take control of operations but if data and machine communications are routed through a trusted execution environment the security around it becomes much more difficult to penetrate with the recent advancement of hardware technologies we can actually create a black box within each iiot device kim said we then place our hardware or trusted execution environment within the device this program is invisible from outside detection any new data generated by iiot technology will go into this black box and is transferred to a different location before going to the cloud the ut dallas team has already produced two different prototypes of their trusted execution environment with plans to keep expanding the project the entire lifetime of sensor data can be placed into the black box using this hardware technology kim continued the necessary program code will then run in the black box so manufacturers can safely use the protected sensor data iiot devices are becoming prolific as low-cost distributed data sources to support the modern digital manufacturing enterprise these devices often rely on small low-cost computing without robust security said dr darrell wallace sai deputy director and chief technology officer this project offers an end-to-end data protection approach that enhances the security of these devices and serves the sai mission to enhance the robustness of domestic manufacturing
"on may 9 the secureamerica institute (sai) in partnership with elbit systems of america hosted the texas manufacturing renaissance in fort worth texas this event convened experts in the defense and aerospace manufacturing sectors to discuss securing robust supply chains and empowering domestic manufacturing for national defense and economic strength the secureamerica institute is a manufacturing initiative within tees the texas a&m engineering experiment station said rob gorham sai executive director tees charter to improve lives through applied engineering is the exact reason for hosting the texas manufacturing renaissance and we could not be more pleased with the outcome us production has long prioritized efficiency more than resiliency with a focus on long lean supply chains often at the risk of security sustainability and agility this has resulted in heavy reliance on foreign sourcing creating a pared-down us manufacturing base unable to scale up and fulfill needs in times of crisis this reconfiguration of a sustainable us supply chain needs to sit at the nexus of policy economic development education and technology ""americas national security demands a resilient and secure manufacturing industrial base and we are investing in expanding its capabilities and capacity to meet those needs "" said scott baum vice president of strategy and growth for elbit systems of america ""we are proud to be a part of the texas manufacturing renaissance to help create solutions that will develop the future workforce and close manufacturing skills gaps"" sai also formally introduced its texas defense aerospace manufacturing community (tdamc) initiative at the event recognizing this moment as a renaissance of american manufacturing tdamc seeks to enable a competitive texas manufacturing ecosystem to empower small-and-medium enterprises (smes) to thrive as manufacturers tdamc sees the introduction and adoption of smart manufacturing principles and processes to promote digitally connected factories across the supply chain as a prime enabler for smes the smart factory represents a leap forward from more traditional automation to a fully connected and flexible manufacturing system that uses a constant stream of data to communicate analyze and use information to drive effective decision-making back in the physical world said mark cotteleer managing director for supply chain and network operations at deloitte consulting lp approximately 98% of us manufacturers are 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 texas manufacturing renaissance provided us with an opportunity to gain valuable insight into industry needs and the solutions we can implement through tdamc said scott terry program director for tdamc we were able to communicate the importance of introducing targeted smart manufacturing skills and technologies into the texas defense aerospace manufacturing ecosystem the dynamic discussions about the need for an abundant and skilled workforce highlighted the fundamental importance of establishing a renewed manufacturing narrative that extends beyond technology innovation tdamc aims to focus on several of these aspects to address workforce shortages that risk the countrys competitive edge within the manufacturing sector and may threaten the future prosperity of the united states"
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
over the course of three geothermal wells completed by different teams over the last two years noynaert and dupriest trained the managers and workers on two of the wells before field operations began the training created a fundamental physics-based understanding of exactly what happens downhole in both the rock cutting process and how the equipment functions after training the researchers continued to help the teams identify and redesign performance limiters and dysfunctions each day as well as implement a more effective workflow to support real-time practices all three teams drilled at the doe frontier observatory for research in geothermal energy (forge) which features a nearly mile-deep formation of hard granite similar to kitchen countertops previous wells drilled through that rock at a rate of 15-20 feet per hour but these three teams started at 250 feet per hour and maintained 100 feet-per-hour speeds while drilling through the stubborn material the first well with a trained team was a highly angled directional well it was finished in about half the time expected and under budget the second team was not trained but copied what they could from the first teams efforts while maintaining the same speeds their well completion time was less than the first well mostly because it was vertical rather than directional the third team was trained and also drilled vertically this team cut the untrained teams completion time in half by drilling much faster and cut costs further by using bits for far longer we had a huge gain with the first well said dupriest but directional drilling aside we've cut everything in half again with the third well plus we made advances to fundamental drilling science the trained teams changed their work methods to include scientifically documenting equipment changes as drilling progressed this required taking specific pictures of bit wear from standard angles the types of damage noted identified the causes of dysfunction and drilling parameters were quickly adjusted to prevent the same damage on the next run the photos were immediately shared with the bit vendor who could improve bit designs based on the evidence since the training instilled better physical knowledge of drilling vertically in hard rock the third team tested the equipment to its limits during operations they safely increased the amount of weight they put on the bit far beyond normal expectations because they understood how to identify and reduce the dysfunction that previously prevented this the additional weight improved drilling times and surprisingly extended bit longevity the third team also used dysfunction evidence to come up with a novel solution to a common but little-understood problem: ductile strengthening of the rock when the bit didnt respond to increased weight and failed to move forward even with tremendous energy use they reasoned that the drilling mud created the limitation and came up with a simple experiment to prove it a 100-gallon water pill was circulated down through the bit to alter the rock-progress situation the bits energy consumption was reduced by half and the drill rate doubled water would not have been used before said noynaert it would have been a 'that's just the way granite works so better change the bit' moment by understanding the physics they could get the solution to the problem right the first time geothermal companies initially thought the training was a petroleum thing but the first team quickly realized its value after seeing the results the second team asked for the training but scheduling conflicts prevented this the third team fully embraced the project goals and made great strides in improving performance dupriest and noynaert now say they must prove the education and processes work in all drilling applications to dispel a growing petroleum belief that the successes are a geothermal thing or only work in granite the future goal of the project will involve finding geothermal drilling teams to learn and test the methods in a variety of geologic regions ideally common to both energy industries
a team from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university led by associate professor dr zachary gagnon and graduate student md nazibul islam has developed a novel way to fabricate diagnostic devices using paper-based microfluidics that can be rapidly prototyped and scaled for manufacturing their research was recently featured on the cover of analyst the field of microfluidics details the movement of liquids through minuscule channels and how this movement can be controlled for use in technological applications examples of these microfluidic systems include diagnostic devices such as tests for pregnancy and covid-19 these systems contain both a pump and a chip where the pump moves liquid into tiny channels on the chip where liquid flows eventually encountering the diagnostic reagent a substance that chemically reacts with antibodies or agents that initiate an identifiable chemical reaction for example a saliva or mucus sample is provided when taking a covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (pcr) test the liquid is carried through channels on the chip to microwells where viral ribonucleic acid (rna) is first converted to dna then amplified in the presence of the sars-covid-2 virus pcr reagents initiate the above steps to detect covid-19 despite being used for various applications research and development for microfluidic devices combined with their use of plastics makes prototyping and scaling these devices extremely costly a single run of a prototype pregnancy test on a small scale can be a six-figure investment making it nearly impossible for consumer-based microfluidics products to enter the market said gagnon academic labs and researchers are publishing papers but cannot commercialize our motivation is finding a way to democratize rapid prototyping platforms so that researchers can commercialize their microfluidic product to address this problem the researchers turned to paper-based microfluidics paper-based microfluidics is not a new idea its previous uses in diagnostic devices are powered by liquid wicking a process where a liquid can flow due to specific geometries of the chambers without external forces common examples of wicking-based paper devices are pregnancy tests and at-home covid antibody/antigen tests while passive fluid handling has helped develop several diagnostic tests the lack of active fluid control and the resulting variability in capillary transport due to surface evaporation is a major technical limitation for paper-based microfluidic devices in contrast the researchers paper microfluidic devices function similarly to traditional plastic microfluidic devices their method allows the researchers to fabricate diagnostic devices using laminated paper to guide porous microfluidic continuous flows using external pressure sources such as pumps in other words laminated paper can direct fluid through porous paper structures with high accuracy and precision and can be used in complex fluid handling systems such as pcr and dna sequencing machines our study showed that we could create diagnostic devices that would normally require precise cleanroom fabrication out of paper that we laminated in our lab and essentially see the same type of flow behavior said gagnon their paper-based diagnostic devices require minimal equipment can be quickly prototyped and are scaled for manufacturing purposes at a fraction of the cost of traditional microfluidic devices making an accessible and inexpensive pathway for microfluidic operations the porous nature of paper offers several advantages because it allows for continuous fluid flow broadening the span of applications for paper microfluidic devices for example islam used this fabrication technique to investigate different applications of paper microfluidics such as studying the elasticity of red blood cells or concentrating dna another graduate student from the chemical engineering department jarad yost has used this technology to perform dna amplification using a paper microfluidic device eliminating the need for large and bulky lab equipment the research offers a potential substitute for traditional microfluidic devices said gagnon we have shown theres enough overlap between paper-based microfluidic designs and traditional designs providing the opportunity for others in microfluidics to commercialize their products this research was funded by nasas early career faculty award and the national science foundations i-corps grant
"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
laser powder bed fusion a 3d-printing technique offers potential in the manufacturing industry particularly when fabricating nickel-titanium shape memory alloys with complex geometries although this manufacturing technique is attractive for applications in the biomedical and aerospace fields it has rarely showcased the superelasticity required for specific applications using nickel-titanium shape memory alloys defects generated and changes imposed onto the material during the 3d-printing process prevented the superelasticity from appearing in 3d-printed nickel-titanium researchers from texas a&m university recently showcased superior tensile superelasticity by fabricating a shape memory alloy through laser powder bed fusion nearly doubling the maximum superelasticity reported in literature for 3d printing this study was recently published in vol 229 of the$ acta materialia journal nickel-titanium shape memory alloys have various applications due to their ability to return to their original shape upon heating or upon removal of the applied stress therefore they can be used in biomedical and aerospace fields for stents implants surgical devices and aircraft wings however developing and properly fabricating these materials requires extensive research to characterize functional properties and examine the microstructure shape memory alloys are smart materials that can remember their high-temperature shapes said dr lei xue a former doctoral student in the department of materials science and engineering and the first author of the publication although they can be utilized in many ways fabricating shape memory alloys into complex shapes requires fine-tuning to ensure the material exhibits the desired properties laser powder bed fusion is an additive manufacturing technique that presents a way to produce nickel-titanium shape memory alloys effectively and efficiently offering a pathway to quick manufacturing or prototyping this technique similar to polymer 3d printing uses a laser to fuse metal or alloy powders layer by layer the layer-by-layer process is beneficial because it can create parts with complex geometries that would be impossible in traditional manufacturing using a 3d printer we spread the alloy powder over a substrate and then use the laser to melt the powder forming one full layer said xue we repeat this layering scanning the same or different patterns until the desired structure is formed unfortunately most nickel-titanium materials cannot withstand the current laser powder bed fusion process often resulting in printing defects such as porosity warping or delamination caused by large thermal gradient and brittleness from oxidation in addition the laser can change the composition of the material due to evaporation during printing to combat this issue the researchers used an optimization framework they created in a previous study which can determine optimal process parameters to achieve defect-free structure and specific material properties with this framework as well as the change in composition and refined process parameters the researchers fabricated nickel-titanium parts that consistently exhibited a room temperature tensile superelasticity of 6% in the as-printed condition (without post-fabrication heat treatment) this level of superelasticity is nearly double the amount previously seen in literature for 3d printing the ability to produce shape memory alloys through 3d printing with increased superelasticity means the materials are more capable of handling applied deformation using 3d printing to develop these superior materials will reduce the cost and time of the manufacturing process in the future the researchers hope their discoveries will lead to increased use of printed nickel-titanium shape memory alloys in biomedical and aerospace applications this study can serve as a guide on how to print nickel-titanium shape memory alloys with desired mechanical and functional characteristics said xue if we can tailor the crystallographic texture and microstructure there are far more applications these shape memory alloys can be used in this research was funded by the us army research laboratory the national priorities research program grant the qatar national research fund and the us national science foundation grant other contributors to the publication include materials science and engineering department head dr ibrahim karaman; materials science and engineering professors dr kadri can atli and dr raymundo arroyave; former materials science and engineering student dr abhinav srivastava and current student nathan hite; wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial systems and engineering professor dr alaa elwany; industrial systems and engineering student chen zhang; and us army research laboratory researchers dr asher c leff dr adam a wilson and dr darin j sharar
texas a&m university researchers have received a grant from the national science foundation's (nsf) resilient & intelligent nextg systems (rings) program the three-year $1 million project aims to advance the resiliency of next-generation wireless and mobile communication networking sensing and computing systems dr krishna narayanan the eric d rubin 06 professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m will serve as the lead principal investigator of the project narayanan will be working alongside co-principal investigators professor dr jean-francois chamberland and associate professor dr sebastian hoyos from electrical and computer engineering and dr sunay palsole assistant vice chancellor for engineering remote education in the college of engineering currently a primary focus for cellular providers is the peak data rate on the downlink or the fastest data transfer rate available from the internet to a cellular device this means that depending on a persons location and accessibility to a base station or cell tower they may occasionally have an excellent connection and high-speed access to the network apps for example will perform well at that moment but not at times when accessibility to a cell tower is limited for this project narayanan and his team are looking at ways to expand the resiliency of the network and build an infrastructure to allow for consistently reliable access to the network regardless of location or other factors that impact current connectivity rates many applications need a more resilient reliable connection to a base station this project not only aims to advance the resiliency of devices such as cell phones but it also looks to open new doors for many types of systems such as machines surveillance cameras autonomous vehicles remote sensors etc that connect to base stations to execute this the team will pursue the idea of using cell-free systems where a device may be connected to multiple base stations at the same time to improve resiliency every device encodes the data in exactly the same way without the base station telling them how to pick the parameters for how to encode their data the team has been at the forefront of research in designing these unsourced random access schemes while narayanan chamberland and hoyos are focused primarily on the research palsole will lead an educational outreach aspect of the project this effort will include the creation of educational modules and their dissemination for broad use by students at other universities and by engineers in the industry a distinct facet of this project is that in addition to government funding the rings program also features industry partners who provide an opportunity for researchers to receive pertinent feedback and information on their perspectives and challenges related to current wireless systems this collaboration ensures the rapid transition of ideas from academia to industry the opportunity to actually get feedback from companies and learn about problems that are of actual interest to them is one of the most exciting things for me in this project narayanan said the nsf rings program is partnered with the office of the under secretary of defense for research and engineering the national institute of standards and technology and a number of industry partners the project was also endorsed by the united nations decade of ocean science for sustainable development
funded by the national science foundations designing materials to revolutionize our engineering future (dmref) program researchers from the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university used an artificial intelligence materials selection framework (aims) to discover a new shape memory alloy the shape memory alloy showed the highest efficiency during operation achieved thus far for nickel-titanium-based materials in addition their data-driven framework offers proof of concept for future materials development this study was recently published in vol 228 of the acta materialia journal shape memory alloys are utilized in various fields where compact lightweight and solid-state actuations are needed replacing hydraulic or pneumatic actuators because they can deform when cold and then return to their original shape when heated this unique property is critical for applications such as airplane wings jet engines and automotive components that must withstand repeated recoverable large-shape changes there have been many advancements in shape memory alloys since their beginnings in the mid-1960s but at a cost understanding and discovering new shape memory alloys has required extensive research through experimentation and ad-hoc trial and error despite many of which have been documented to help further shape memory alloy applications new alloy discoveries have occurred in a decadal fashion about every 10 years a significant shape memory alloy composition or system has been discovered moreover even with advances in shape memory alloys they are hindered by their low energy efficiency caused by incompatibilities in their microstructure during the large shape change further they are notoriously difficult to design from scratch to address these shortcomings texas a&m researchers have combined experimental data to create an aims computational framework capable of determining optimal materials compositions and processing these materials which led to the discovery of a new shape memory alloy composition when designing materials sometimes you have multiple objectives or constraints that conflict which is very difficult to work around said dr ibrahim karaman chevron professor i and materials science and engineering department head using our machine-learning framework we can use experimental data to find hidden correlations between different materials features to see if we can design new materials the shape memory alloy found during the study using aims was predicted and proven to achieve the narrowest hysteresis ever recorded in other words the material showed the lowest energy loss when converting thermal energy to mechanical work the material showcased high efficiency when subject to thermal cycling due to its extremely small transformation temperature window the material also exhibited excellent cyclic stability under repeated actuation a nickel-titanium-copper composition is typical for shape memory alloys nickel-titanium-copper alloys typically have titanium equal to 50% and form a single-phase material using machine learning the researchers predicted a different composition with titanium equal to 47% and copper equal to 21% while this composition is in the two-phase region and forms particles they help enhance the materials properties explained william trehern doctoral student and graduate research assistant in the materials science and engineering department and the publications first author in particular this high-efficiency shape memory alloy lends itself to thermal energy harvesting which requires materials that can capture waste energy produced by machines and put it to use and thermal energy storage which is used for cooling electronic devices more notably the aims framework offers the opportunity to use machine-learning techniques in materials science the researchers see potential to discover more shape memory alloy chemistries with desired characteristics for various other applications it is a revelation to use machine learning to find connections that our brain or known physical principles may not be able to explain said karaman we can use data science and machine learning to accelerate the rate of materials discovery i also believe that we can potentially discover new physics or mechanisms behind materials behavior that we did not know before if we pay attention to the connections machine learning can find other contributors include dr raymundo arróyave and dr kadri can atli professors in the materials science and engineering department and materials science and engineering undergraduate student risheil ortiz-ayala while machine learning is now widely used in materials science most approaches to date focus on predicting the properties of a material without necessarily explaining how to process it to achieve target properties said arróyave here the framework looked not only at the chemical composition of candidate materials but also the processing necessary to attain the properties of interest
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
dr stratos pistikopoulos professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university comes from a long and decorated history in academia pistikopoulos received the 2022 distinguished achievement award for his research efforts the first award he has earned as an aggie the association of former students presents the award to provide funds and recognize outstanding efforts in teaching research individual student relationships continuing education/extension graduate mentoring staff and administration the award is one of the highest university honors bestowed upon a faculty or staff member and pistikopoulos was one of only 24 selected throughout the university my first award with texas a&m is special because it is from my colleagues and we are in a very competitive demanding environment said pistikopoulos the award signifies that i have helped shape young minds primarily by guiding our doctoral students and post-doctoral associates i am very grateful to receive this honor pistikopoulos pursued his undergraduate degree in greece before receiving his doctoral degree from carnegie melon university he later worked for shell chemical in amsterdam before becoming a professor at imperial college london he began working for texas a&m seven years ago and is currently the texas a&m energy institute director and holds the dow chemical chair in the chemical engineering department in addition he is an affiliate member of the department of multidisciplinary engineering pistikopoulos research focuses on optimizing chemical engineering through artificial intelligence computation and applied mathematics rather than through experimentation which can be costly the computational tools his team developed can solve complex problems through analysis and simulations their software can be used in various fields from oil and gas to energy and manufacturing supply chains a key component of our research is focused on developing computer-based tools for risk management and analysis of energy transition scenarios he said companies need to determine an optimal mix of energy solutions for the future our modeling environment presents alternatives that we analyze systematically to help companies make informed energy business decisions pistikopoulos hopes to use his research ventures and career in academia to lead the way toward cleaner energy solutions i think we have an opportunity through various entities at texas a&m to be a protagonist in the energy sector as it transitions in the future he said texas controls almost over 40% of the united states energy space which provides the university a chance to shape the future of energy in the state and nationwide pistikopoulos has produced over 350 journal publications and over 250 referred conference publications he has also co-authored 15 books these resources have been cited more than 24 000 times according to google scholar his extensive work with doctoral and post-doctoral students significantly contributed to earning this award he has helped 64 doctoral students graduate throughout his career 14 of whom are from texas a&m as well as 20 post-doctorate associates six of whom are from texas a&m in addition 16 former doctoral students and nine former post-doctorates became professors including three from texas a&m they now teach at the university of wisconsin-madison the university of connecticut and west virginia university the award was formally presented to pistikopoulos on april 25
dr jiang hu professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is working to revitalize electronic design automation (eda) technology with machine-learning techniques to keep pace with the ever-growing chip design complexity eda is a category of software tools used to design electronic systems such as integrated circuits nowadays chip complexity is extremely high and is continuing to advance at a very fast rate current techniques used for eda are limited in that they don't offer the capability of knowledge reuse another limitation is that chip design has many complicated steps and conventional electronic design automation techniques are centered on point solutions that aim to address a single task at a time alternatively machine learning incorporates past designs and allows for updates and modifications based on those known experiences rather than starting from point-a each time much like the human brain machine learning can build upon experiences and integrate what is learned or gathered to make progress machine learning is quite different from the conventional techniques in the sense that the conventional techniques do everything from scratch while machine learning has the capability to extract knowledge from prior designs and reuse the knowledge which is much more efficient hu said hu is leading a collaborative team of four faculty members from two universities with individual expertise and experience that equips them to address the changing landscape and needs of eda technology this project which is funded by a $12 million national science foundation grant aims to customize existing machine-learning techniques for the most efficient use in chip designs to help design faster and more power-efficient chips with a quicker turnaround than is currently possible
collaborators include dr yiran chen professor from duke university michael quinn associate professor of practice and dr aakash tyagi professor of practice both from the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m chen is an expert in machine learning while quinn and tyagi have a collective five decades of industry experience in chip design and verification hu began studying the integration of machine learning into eda four years ago and was drawn to the field due to its impact across many disciplines and industries if you look at the progress of chip design technology and electronic design automation in the past several decades there have been mostly small steps you know but this is something big; it is fundamental hu said machine learning can cover the areas that conventional electronic design automation is simply not able to handle as part of this project hu and his team are also bringing in students including women and under-represented minorities with interdisciplinary skills to learn and gain valuable experience in this area of study
"dr edwin l thomas professor in the department of materials science and engineering a team of researchers from texas a&m university and yonsei university recently discovered a helicoidal-shaped defect in layered polymers uncovering how solvents can rapidly diffuse through layers and produce color changes this research was recently published in science advances in some human-interactive electronics such as temperature gauges or health sensors polymers are used that are capable of changing color depending on stimuli this phenomenon is referred to as stimuli-interactive structural colors because the material reacts and changes color due to environmental changes such as temperature the presence of a solvent or solution a material that has a one-dimensional periodic structure comprised of two (a and b) layers acts like a photonic crystal and can reflect light of a given wavelength (color) depending on the thickness of each layer stimuli-interactive structural color works by altering photonic crystals using external stimuli or forces the thickness of each polymer layer affects the color of the light reflected: if all the layers in a material are of the same thickness a single color will be reflected if different parts of the material are composed of stacks of layers each having a different thickness each layer will reflect a different color and the material will appear like a normal metal material reflecting all colors in some cases a preferential solvent is used to swell one of the particular polymer layers purposefully causing color changes the researchers noticed that the expected layers were swelling in these materials however it was unclear how the solvent was seeping/crossing through layers that did not swell to those that were supposed to swell lets say we put a solvent over multiple polymer a and b layers said thomas the first a layer swells the b layer doesnt swell but the next layer a will how does the solvent get through the second b layer we realized there must be something in the overall polymer structure that allows the passage of solvent to the other layers"" to understand what was occurring within the polymers the researchers used an electron beam imaging to develop a tomogram a reconstruction technique that takes very thin two-dimensional images of sections of 3d objects to uncover what is inside suppose you had a loaf of bread and you wanted to know if there was a hole somewhere within the loaf said thomas if you sliced it thin youd eventually hit the hole you keep slicing and then the hole would disappear if you looked at all the slices you could understand exactly where the holes are this process is similar to the idea of a tomograph using this method the researchers found that within the polymer photonic crystal material helicoidal screw dislocations (defects) were present allowing the solvent to easily and rapidly cross through to different layers causing the swelling and producing the stimuli-interactive structural color changes typically defects are associated with high energy and are singular (abruptly disrupting the periodicity occurring in one location) in contrast the helicoidal defects are nonsingular and spontaneously formed an advantage for the materials this is a good kind of defect that helps properties and allows swift and efficient penetration into the material with solvent and rapid swelling if these things didnt exist the only way the layers could sweat would be from the edges said thomas because stimuli-interactive structural color presents an excellent potential for devices such as health sensors and human-interactive electronics controlling the lateral spacing or amount of helicoidal defects could be a critical factor in future applications these defects currently produce a favorable effect but it depends on the application he said our next challenge is deciphering how to control the spacing and amount of these defects and in turn having more control over the time it takes for the fluid to move through the layers understanding these defects is key for increasing the number of applications this technology can be used in the hagler institute fellowship supported the research completed on this project at texas a&m"
nuclear forensics involves the analysis of nuclear materials to determine their origin and history in support of investigations into nuclear security events dr sunil chirayath is conducting research to develop new methods for nuclear detection as a member of the consortium for monitoring technology and verification (mtv) led by the university of michigan chirayath is an associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering director of the texas a&m center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives and the projects principal investigator at texas a&m he is focusing on nuclear forensics methodology development and testing and verification ­ including neutronics simulations radiochemical experimental efforts and nondestructive and destructive assay of irradiated uranium and plutonium samples the nuclear forensics methodology development involves machine learning and maximum likelihood statistical techniques and will be able to provide demonstratable proof for us government agencies to identify the origins of plutonium produced in foreign nuclear fuel cycles if such material is subjected to experimental analysis the consortium is funded by a five-year $25-million award from the us department of energys national nuclear security administration with the focus on developing new methods to detect and deter nuclear proliferation activities and to educate the next generation of nuclear security professionals under the direction of dr sara pozzi of the university of michigan the consortium is composed of 14 universities and 13 national laboratories the overarching goal of the mtv is to significantly advance the national capability to detect and characterize foreign nuclear weapons development programs and detect activities not in compliance with current treaty obligations the mtv plans to meet this goal by conducting research focused on three technical thrust areas: fundamentals of nuclear particle physics; signals and source terms for nuclear nonproliferation; and nuclear explosion monitoring cross-cutting areas of mtv include modeling and simulation nuclear policy and education and outreach chirayaths research team mainly contributes to the mtv thrust area of signals and source terms for nuclear nonproliferation in addition to the cross-cutting areas of modeling and simulation and education and outreach the consortium project at texas a&m supports three nuclear engineering doctoral students and engages four nuclear engineering undergraduate students in research and collaborates with lawrence livermore national laboratory and sandia national laboratories in this research endeavor students are also offered internship opportunities to expand training and research activities at national laboratories through their close collaboration with the national laboratories the activities at texas a&m are supporting the us governments need to grow the nuclear forensics pipeline in the us through training job-ready experts in the field along with the university of michigan and texas a&m the consortium includes columbia university; the georgia institute of technology; the massachusetts institute of technology; penn state university; princeton university; the university of california berkeley; the university of florida; the university of hawaii; the university of new mexico; the university of tennessee knoxville; the university of wisconsin; and virginia polytechnic institute and state university
nuclear forensics involves the analysis of nuclear materials to determine their origin and history in support of investigations into nuclear security events dr sunil chirayath is conducting research to develop new methods for nuclear detection as a member of the consortium for monitoring technology and verification (mtv) led by the university of michigan

chirayath is an associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering director of the texas a&m center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives and the projects principal investigator at texas a&m he is focusing on nuclear forensics methodology development and testing and verification ­ including neutronics simulations radiochemical experimental efforts and nondestructive and destructive assay of irradiated uranium and plutonium samples
the nuclear forensics methodology development involves machine learning and maximum likelihood statistical techniques and will be able to provide demonstratable proof for us government agencies to identify the origins of plutonium produced in foreign nuclear fuel cycles if such material is subjected to experimental analysis the consortium is funded by a five-year $25-million award from the us department of energys national nuclear security administration with the focus on developing new methods to detect and deter nuclear proliferation activities and to educate the next generation of nuclear security professionals under the direction of dr sara pozzi of the university of michigan the consortium is composed of 14 universities and 13 national laboratories the overarching goal of the mtv is to significantly advance the national capability to detect and characterize foreign nuclear weapons development programs and detect activities not in compliance with current treaty obligations the mtv plans to meet this goal by conducting research focused on three technical thrust areas: fundamentals of nuclear particle physics; signals and source terms for nuclear nonproliferation; and nuclear explosion monitoring cross-cutting areas of mtv include modeling and simulation nuclear policy and education and outreach chirayaths research team mainly contributes to the mtv thrust area of signals and source terms for nuclear nonproliferation in addition to the cross-cutting areas of modeling and simulation and education and outreach the consortium project at texas a&m supports three nuclear engineering doctoral students and engages four nuclear engineering undergraduate students in research and collaborates with lawrence livermore national laboratory and sandia national laboratories in this research endeavor students are also offered internship opportunities to expand training and research activities at national laboratories through their close collaboration with the national laboratories the activities at texas a&m are supporting the us governments need to grow the nuclear forensics pipeline in the us through training job-ready experts in the field along with the university of michigan and texas a&m the consortium includes columbia university; the georgia institute of technology; the massachusetts institute of technology; penn state university; princeton university; the university of california berkeley; the university of florida; the university of hawaii; the university of new mexico; the university of tennessee knoxville; the university of wisconsin; and virginia polytechnic institute and state university
fluxworks a developer and manufacturer of magnetic gears and magnetic gear-integrated motors took the grand prize and more at the eighth annual texas a&m new ventures competition (tnvc) the annual event hosted by the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and texas a&m university innovation partners recognizes some of the most innovative startups in texas bryton praslicka president and ceo of fluxworks competed with other startups throughout texas at tnvc to win the $35 000 first-place prize and several other sponsored prizes for its magnetic gear technology which has improved reliability and reduced maintenance costs compared to its counterpart the mechanical gear magnetic gears are like mechanical gears they change high-speed low-torque rotation to high-torque low-speed rotation gears are useful because they help reduce the size weight and capital expense of many motor-generator systems but magnetic gears are contactless so they don't need lubrication which has the potential to eliminate the major issues associated with mechanical gears such as frequent maintenance and reliability issues they may also significantly reduce the risk of failure in the event of an overload praslicka said they the company has already received interest in its magnetic gears from commercial and military delivery drone manufacturers air taxi startups wind turbine manufacturers space robotics companies and nasa as well as surgical robotic actuator companies all interested in the benefits of magnetic gears so the impact of their new technology could be huge the prize pool for this years competition was more than $475 000 in cash and in-kind services in all $2 860 000 in prizes have been given out during the eight years of the competition and praslicka was excited to be the latest grand prize winner additionally the startup won the aggieland business park/brazos valley economic development corporation launch prize the knobbe martens prize the versa business partners prize and the stibbs & co prize but the competition is important for startup companies like fluxworks well beyond the cash prizes having incorporated just six months ago being at the competition and experiencing this momentum is incredible praslicka said in fact the team wants to keep the growth organic and sustainable so while at the competition we were focusing on seeking more business leadership and building our advisory board to be sure we make the right steps at the right pace winning the competition felt like it validated the hard work we have put in so far and gives us the energy to keep going even when times are hard this has already led to so many connections which is helping us build our business team the funds and partnership are helping stimulate our organic sustainable growth aimed at promoting the commercialization of emerging technology tnvc recognizes companies with high-growth potential like fluxworks and helps them effectively execute their ideas and advance product development tnvc provides a great return for its stakeholders here at texas a&m as well as its participants said chris scotti tnvc chair and director of new ventures texas a&m university innovation partners sure science- and engineering-based companies from across the state of texas get an opportunity to compete for high-value prizes but even more importantly they get exposure to resources and make connections that act as a springboard for their technologies journey to market for texas a&m specifically he said tnvc also is a friendly opportunity for spinout and alumni-led companies to test their mettle against their peers and for the entire texas a&m university system to showcase its offerings such as tees- and texas a&m health-sponsored research this couldnt be more evident with this years winner being a texas a&m engineering spinout scotti said one of the things about fluxworks that stood out to the judges this year was doctoral candidate bryton praslickas charismatic yet humble approach demonstrating that he had the technical chops while asking the well-connected audience to help him in his search for business-savvy leadership they are now at the top of an already elite group of texas businesses with groundbreaking technologies we look forward to watching fluxworks and all the tnvc 2022 competitors progress over the coming years visit here for more information on fluxworks and a full list of the tnvc winners
additive manufacturing is transforming the world with the creation of objects not possible before due to the rapidly changing 3d printing landscape new engineering standards for this technology must be envisioned dr darrell wallace chief technology officer for the secureamerica institute (sai) helped found american society of mechanical engineers (asme) standard y1446 which sets processes for the production of interchangeable parts through additive manufacturing this standard is a critical enabler for moving the adoption of additive manufacturing forward effectively in the industry said wallace who was elected to serve as vice-chair of asmes standards committee through my participation in establishing this standard the secureamerica institute and texas a&m played a leadership role in partnership with major players in the engineering space when household hardware like bolts washers and screws are assembled the final products will all differ slightly in dimensions and size due to variations in the manufacturing process they are roughly the same but not exactly the same engineers and manufacturers use a system called geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (gd&t) to communicate differences and ensure parts are interchangeable (designing components with tolerances so objects will fit together despite these variations) traditional gd&t standards describe the surface on the outside of each part and how these surfaces will fit together with additive manufacturing the creation of interchangeable parts has moved from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional plane and the design procedures are no longer uniform as part of an asme team wallace quickly realized shortcomings in traditional standards and their application to additive manufacturing he then started conversations to implement modern processes capable of evolving with this new technology we now have the ability to create parts from multiple materials wallace said its not just the dimensions on the outside of the part that matter but the dimensions of where two different materials meet where they touch and the shape of where they touch is important the old standards give us no control over this wallace said to think of this process like a graphic designer prepares an image for printing upon export the printer will read special marks and color values to ensure the image is printed correctly and spatially aligned with additive manufacturing instead of a printer transitioning from light to dark we now have printers transitioning between materials like brass to steel wallace said in between there will be another element controlling how quickly this transition occurs in order to verify and control these mechanisms we are actively creating new terminology that did not exist until now through wallaces involvement the secureamerica institute is currently the only academic institution represented on the committee there are very few experts on this topic in the country wallace said we have the opportunity to position sai as a considerable thought leader in this area and shape the future of the manufacturing industry
the secureamerica institute and its network of partners are committed to leveraging technology solutions to address nationally impactful challenges please contact dr darrell wallace at dwallace@tamuedu if youre interested in forming a strategic partnership or wish to work together to move manufacturing technology forward
millions of shipments of nuclear and other radiological materials are moved in the us every year for good reasons including health care power generation research and manufacturing but there remains the threat that bad actors in possession of stolen or illegally produced nuclear materials or weapons will try to smuggle them across borders for nefarious purposes texas a&m university researchers are making it harder for them to succeed if border agents intercept illicit nuclear materials investigators need to know who produced them and where they came from fortunately nuclear materials carry certain forensic markers that can reveal valuable information much like fingerprints can identify criminals for instance when scientists examine the concentration of certain key contaminant isotopes in separated plutonium samples they can determine three different attributes of the samples history: the type of nuclear reactor that produced it how long the plutonium or uranium was contained in the reactor and how long ago it was produced with current statistical methodologies they can determine these three attributes utilizing a generated database that stores the required information as a mathematical variation of these attributes for various nuclear reactor types and emerge with a good idea of who made the material but what if investigators are presented with a mixed plutonium sample said dr sunil chirayath author of a new study on nuclear forensics recently published in the journal nuclear science and engineering suppose the adversary is mixing materials from two nuclear reactors at two different times and that material is cooled for different times a bad actor might do this intentionally to disguise it mixed samples of nuclear material are significantly more challenging to identify with traditional methodologies in a real-world situation the extra time required could have a catastrophic impact on the global community to improve the process chirayath associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives along with his research team has developed a methodology using machine learning a type of artificial intelligence he can produce identifying markers through simulations and then store that data in a 3d database each attribute is one level of the database and a standard computer can quickly process the data and lead investigators to the reactor type that produced the plutonium sample and potentially the suspects by joining other pieces of the puzzle gathered through traditional forensics three experiments of irradiating uranium using three different reactor types and post-irradiation examinations have been conducted at texas a&m to date without knowing the samples origins doctoral student researcher patrick oneal successfully identified where each of the plutonium samples was produced by using machine learning the work is being done through a consortium of national labs and universities funded by the us department of energys national nuclear security administration the consortium focuses on development of new methods of detecting and deterring nuclear proliferation and to educating the next generation of nuclear security professionals chirayaths team will soon run one more irradiation and the corresponding post-irradiation examination with funding already in place the next step is to take this machine-learning methodology to high-level government labs where researchers can work with much larger samples of nuclear materials university labs are constrained by more restrictive irradiation safety limits chirayath is confident efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation are working the international treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons arose from concern about atomic weaponry and all but four countries india israel pakistan and south sudan signed it north korea signed it but walked away from it later chirayath also notes that with the rise in nuclear energy production comes an increased risk that the technology will be used to make weapons capable of mass destruction we have to make sure materials are not diverted from peaceful use he said we need to double-up our tools and methodologies but its not just technical tools we also have to double-up on policies and agreements to prevent proliferation from happening
the white house and the us department of defense (dod) partnered with the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) to host a summit in westlake texas today in an effort to improve the supply chain resilience of critical materials tees is uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology workforce development economics and policy to foster innovations that can advance our nations global competitiveness said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor for engineering and interim director of tees we are proud to join government and industry leaders to offer our expertise in solving manufacturing challenges to accelerate national security innovation and secure the future of the us industrial base the summit convened key stakeholders and industry leaders to discuss the significance of restoring the us rare earth magnetics supply chain how global supply chain complexities impact domestic defense production capacity and the importance of small business innovation to defense industrial base capabilities tees is honored to have been selected as the white house and department of defense regional partner in response to executive order 14017 said rob gorham executive director for manufacturing initiatives at tees and the secureamerica institute the future of us national and economic security depends on a whole-of-nation approach and this summit reinforces our commitment to addressing manufacturing supply chain challenges of the 21st century executive order 14017 also called for a comprehensive review of supply chains in critical sectors a resilient diverse robust and secure supply chain ensures the development and sustainment of capabilities crucial to national security recommendations from speakers provided the dod with insight to develop a strategic roadmap to reinvigorate the defense industrial base capabilities increasing supply chain resilience across all defense-critical sectors remains a top priority for the department said deborah rosenblum performing the duties of assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy a resilient defense industrial base is a critical element of us power and provides an enduring advantage to build resilience the dod must use all of its tools in addition to collaborating with the interagency international and industry partners the national resolve to fortify americas supply chains through initiatives like those contained in the biden-harris administrations bipartisan innovation act as well as the house armed services committees critical supply chain task force will help support and accelerate domestic supply of critical materials in texas and across the country during the covid-19 pandemic global supply chains shifted to domestic capabilities revealing fragility in the modern supply chain structure strengthening the us manufacturing and industrial base will require converging industry academia and government stakeholders to redesign supply chain networks to ensure vital needs of the nation are met throughout manufacturing disruptions this summit demonstrated a commitment to renewing and revitalizing us manufacturing by actively engaging with government at all levels the defense industrial base is building resiliency and establishing a network of domestic and allied supply chains to meet national security needs
"blood pressure is one of the most important indicators of heart health but it's tough to measure outside of a clinical setting frequently and reliably for decades cuff-based devices that constrict around the arm to give a reading have been the gold standard researchers at texas a&m university and the university of texas at austin are working to change that enabling continuous monitoring that can provide a more comprehensive look at blood pressure than the single snapshot that comes with the cuffs the researchers developed an electronic tattoo that can be worn comfortably on the wrist for hours and deliver continuous blood pressure measurements at an accuracy level exceeding nearly all available options on the market today this research has received $5 million in awards and funding from the national institutes of health (nih) ""taking infrequent blood pressure measurements has many limitations and it does not provide insight into exactly how our bodies are functioning "" said dr roozbeh jafari professor of biomedical engineering computer science and electrical engineering at texas a&m and the co-leader of the project blood pressure is the force of blood pushing against the walls of arteries as blood flows to the arteries they expand to let it through hypertension or high blood pressure happens when the force is too great or the arteries don't expand enough high blood pressure can lead to serious heart conditions if left untreated it can be hard to capture with a traditional blood pressure check because it only measures that exact moment in time a single data point ""blood pressure is the most important vital sign you can measure but the methods to do it outside of the clinic passively without a cuff are very limited "" said dr deji akinwande a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at ut austin and one of the co-leaders of the project which is documented in a new paper published on june 20 2022 in nature nanotechnology the continuous monitoring of the e-tattoo allows for blood pressure measurements in all kinds of situations: at times of high stress while sleeping exercising etc it can deliver hundreds and thousands of measurements more than any device thus far mobile health monitoring has taken major leaps in recent years primarily due to technology like smartwatches these devices use metallic sensors that get readings based on led light sources shined through the skin ""all this data can help create a digital twin to model the human body to predict and show how it might react and respond to treatments over time "" akinwande said however leading smartwatches aren't yet ready for blood pressure monitoring that's because the watches slide around on the wrist and may be far from arteries making it hard to deliver accurate readings and the light-based measurements can falter in people with darker skin tones and/or larger wrists the e-tattoo makes sense as a vehicle for mobile blood pressure monitoring because it resides in a sticky stretchy material that is comfortable to wear and doesnt slide around the is a very thin layer of carbon named graphene similar to what we see in graphite or pencils but the atoms are precisely placed next to each other to form one to a few atomic layers ""the sensor for the tattoo is weightless and unobtrusive; you place it there you don't even see it and it doesn't move you need the sensor to stay in the same place because if you happen to move it around the measurements are going to be different "" jafari said the device takes its measurements by shooting an electrical current into the skin and then analyzing the body's response which is known as bioimpedance there is a correlation between bioimpedance and changes in blood pressure that has to do with blood volume changes however the correlation is not particularly obvious so the team had to create a machine-learning model to analyze the connection to get accurate blood pressure readings in medicine cuff-less blood pressure monitoring is the ""holy grail "" jafari said but there isn't a viable solution on the market yet it's part of a larger push in medicine to use technology to untether patients from machines while collecting more data wherever they are allowing them to go from room to room clinic to clinic and still get personalized care the term that we often use is called ‘medicine in the wild which was coined by dr david paydarfar professor of medicine at dell medical school jafari said the fundamental science on medical e-tattoos has advanced rapidly in the last few years but the next step toward fda-approved monitoring devices that people can use will take a lot of technological integration that means working to integrate these sensors with smartphones smart watches and other mobile devices that people can use to get routine continuous readouts of data other team members on the project are dr dmitry kireev and neelotpala kumar from electrical and computer engineering at ut austin; kaan sel and bassem ibrahim from electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m; and dr ali akbari from biomedical engineering at texas a&m the research was supported by grants from the office of naval research the national science foundation and nih realizing unobtrusive and passive technologies for the frequent recording of blood pressure to address the worldwide problem of hypertension is among the most important global challenges in health care i am pleased to see the progression of technology development following the initiation of the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering (nibib)/nih-india collaboration for the development of such technologies a decade ago said dr roderic pettigrew first director of nibib chief executive officer of engineering health and inaugural dean for engineering medicine at texas a&m"
funded by the exxonmobil chemical company researchers at texas a&m university and exxonmobil are developing a method to reprocess petroleum coke a byproduct of refining crude oil into a sustainable high-value alternative using a chemical process called electrochemical exfoliation they have converted petroleum coke into graphene a nanomaterial with applications in electronics medicine and energy storage this study was published in npj 2d materials and applications crude oil is a mixture of many different hydrocarbons with light portions going to natural gas while the heaviest portions form viscous or even solid materials one of the many products that comes from refining crude oil is solid petroleum coke although there are many ways to utilize petroleum coke such as electrodes for steel and aluminum production this process releases harmful carbon emissions for this reason the industry is looking for low-emissions high-value materials that can be derived from crude oil a possible solution is repurposing the carbon-rich petroleum coke to generate graphene a versatile sheet-like material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms conventionally graphene is exfoliated from graphite the researchers investigated whether any chemical processes would facilitate graphene production from fossil fuel-derived materials we know that petroleum coke contains graphene-like materials said dr micah green professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m our challenge was to isolate the graphene from the starting material to accomplish this task the researchers turned to electrochemistry they placed coke into an electrolyte solution with a working electrode and a counter electrode when they applied voltage to the working electrode the ionic species or negative ions from the electrolyte migrated in between the graphene sheets in a process called intercalation think of the coke as a book and the graphene as each individual sheet of paper said green when the book is laid flat on its spine the pages fan out and have more gaps between them the process of electrochemical exfoliation is similar when the coke is expanded the graphene separates negative ions are created and move into the spaces between the graphene sheets completing the coke byproduct and graphene separation many graphene applications require high conductivity but whether the graphene from petroleum coke could achieve such performance was unknown the graphene created from the coke had a conductivity of 50 siemens per meter compared to a typical lithium-ion battery whose electrical conductivity is about 150-160 siemens per meter with a heat treatment called annealing the researchers could boost the conductivity even higher making it comparable to electrodes in lithium-ion batteries with these findings graphene applications that have been in development for years could come to fruition the future of nanomaterial scaleup is directly tied to existing streams in the petrochemical industry and i anticipate many more cases where petroleum-derived chemicals are converted to high-value carbon materials like graphene said green other contributors to the research include postdoctoral researcher dr sanjit saha; doctoral students pritishma lakhe kailash arole and xiaofei zhao; undergraduate students matthew j mason and bryan j coleman; and exxonmobil researchers sergey yakovlev sundararajan uppili and rohan a hule
"although widely used polymers bring with them challenges often determined by the processing conditions in which they are made with the ability to understand the factors of how these materials are influenced in their creation researchers at texas a&m university could unlock great control and customization of polymer performance dr anastasia muliana professor in the j mike walker '66 department of mechanical engineering is working with her team to discover how these processes impact the performance of polymers polymers are materials consisting of very large molecules also known as macromolecules and are composed of many repeating patterns they are used in daily life and have wide-ranging applications from the automotive industry aerospace and infrastructure to packaging agriculture and biomedicine however a major challenge is that often the same types of polymers can show significant variations in the properties they exhibit an effect caused by differing processing conditions that can alter the chemical and physical properties of cured polymers ""in these applications various types of polymers and processing conditions are considered and the processed polymers are often exposed to a multitude of external stimuli "" muliana said ""investigating the link between processing structure property and stimuli on the time-dependent responses of polymers is necessary to design and process polymers with the desired performance for their applications and also to provide a long-term solution for recyclability or biodegradation"" the team's focus has centered on better understanding the time-dependent mechanical responses of polymers when exposed to various environmental conditions and processing conditions their new approach links the processing structure property and stimuli information to the time-dependent responses of the polymers allowing the researchers to further consider physical mechanisms and relevant macromolecular information ""polymer processing and characterization of polymer properties are usually done separately and independently where investigations on short- and long-term responses of polymers are often performed without incorporating knowledge of processing histories nor information on basic chemical properties "" muliana said ""for the same type of polymers large variations in the properties are often found in literature which makes it challenging to use this information for designing with polymers it is often necessary to experimentally characterize the properties of a polymer after each processing condition"" the benefits of muliana's approach to discovering the influence of processing conditions on the properties of polymers could be three-fold: to permit the design of polymers with desired life performance to reduce the number of experimental characterizations required to determine the polymer properties to support future digital twin concepts in polymer processing predicting life performance of polymers during their service and designing the afterlife of polymers ultimately thanks to these potential results muliana and her team hope their research will lead to highly customizable polymer devices or structures with tighter controls over their performance and durability the team is now looking ahead to collaborations with polymer chemists and experimentalists ""we expect to have more robust models and simulation tools to incorporate a wider range of processing conditions including 3d printing more detailed information about the polymers' macromolecular networks and more complex mechanical loading histories "" muliana said"
extrusion-based 3d printing/bioprinting is a promising approach to generating patient-specific tissue-engineered grafts however a major challenge in extrusion-based 3d printing and bioprinting is that most currently used materials lack the versatility to be used in a wide range of applications new nanotechnology has been developed by a team of researchers from texas a&m university that leverages colloidal interactions of nanoparticles to print complex geometries that can mimic tissue and organ structure the team led by dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor and presidential impact fellow in the department of biomedical engineering has introduced colloidal solutions of 2d nanosilicates as a platform technology to print complex structures 2d nanosilicates are disc-shaped inorganic nanoparticles 20 to 50 nanometers in diameter and 1 to 2 nanometers in thickness these nanosilicates form a house-of-cards structure above a certain concentration in water known as a colloidal solution these colloidal solutions have appealing properties when studying the deformation of a material such as increased viscosity and yield stress as well as shear thinning where viscosity reduces under strain and thixotropic behavior where a material deforms in response to applied forces the gaharwar laboratory leverages the rheological properties of these nanosilicates for extrusion-based 3d printing the results of the teams research were published in the journal bioprinting the research was supported by the national institute of biomedical imaging bioengineering of the national institutes of health and the president's excellence fund (x-grants and t3)
some major challenges in extrusion-based 3d printing are the inability to print tall and complex structures as soft materials flow under gravity and cannot form self-supporting structures to overcome these challenges researchers used colloidal nanosilicates and demonstrated them as a platform technology for bioprinting using three different approaches in the first approach satyam rajput a biomedical engineering graduate student in the gaharwar laboratory and the lead author of the paper designed a shear-thinning ink composed of nanosilicates and water-soluble polymers such as agarose alginate kappa-carrageenan gelatin gelatin methacryloyl polyethylene glycol and n-isopropyl acrylamide the printable ink formulation showed good shape fidelity in the second approach the team demonstrated the use of nanosilicates as a sacrificial ink an instrument designed to fail and be removed to design microfluidic devices for in vitro disease modeling these perfusable devices can be used for various applications to emulate and study vascular physiology and fluid mechanics disease models tissue organization and function therapeutic tissue engineering and 3d-cell culture models and screen drugs in the third approach the researchers utilized a colloidal nanosilicate gel as a support bath for 3d printing by nullifying the surface tension and gravitational forces a range of complex structures such as a bifurcated vessel femur meniscus dna double helix heart and trileaflet valve were printed inside the support bath the versatility of nanosilicates could be widely adopted in the fields of additive manufacturing tissue engineering drug delivery and medical devices gaharwar said other authors who contributed to this study are biomedical engineering graduate students kaivalya deo tanmay mathur giriraj lokhande and kanwar abhay singh; dr yuxiang sun associate professor in the department of nutrition; dr daniel alge associate professor in biomedical engineering; dr abhishek jain assistant professor in biomedical engineering; and dr tapasree roy sarkar assistant professor in the department of biology
according to the national spinal cord injury statistical center approximately 18 000 new spinal cord injuries occur each year in the united states spinal cord injuries often lead to serious constipation or incontinence which can lead to decreased quality of life and may even be life-threatening after a spinal cord injury 41% of patients rated bowel dysfunction as a severe life-limiting problem to address these challenges dr hangue park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is looking into the utilization of closed-loop electrical stimulation on the colon to promote the natural rhythm of the digestive system this would ultimately negate the adverse effects caused by spinal cord injury and promote functional recovery although the effect of electrical stimulation on promoting effective colon movement has been previously investigated no previous study has yet investigated the result of closed-loop electrical stimulation on promoting colon movement park said traditional open-loop electrical stimulation has been previously proven successful in triggering colonic peristalsis which is the natural constriction and relaxation of the muscles in the digestive tract however park is looking into closed-loop e-stim because of its unique offering to regulate stimulation closed-loop stimulation occurs at a strategic time that allows researchers to work with the colon at a specific time during the digestive process and is regulated whereas open-loop stimulation occurs at random times and is not regulated leading to inconsistent benefit closed-loop stimulation allows park and his team to work with the intrinsic movement of the colon and augment the naturally occurring processes just at a decreased rate due to the patients injury
to address these challenges dr hangue park assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is looking into the utilization of closed-loop electrical stimulation on the colon to promote the natural rhythm of the digestive system this would ultimately negate the adverse effects caused by spinal cord injury and promote functional recovery although the effect of electrical stimulation on promoting effective colon movement has been previously investigated no previous study has yet investigated the result of closed-loop electrical stimulation on promoting colon movement park said traditional open-loop electrical stimulation has been previously proven successful in triggering colonic peristalsis which is the natural constriction and relaxation of the muscles in the digestive tract however park is looking into closed-loop e-stim because of its unique offering to regulate stimulation closed-loop stimulation occurs at a strategic time that allows researchers to work with the colon at a specific time during the digestive process and is regulated whereas open-loop stimulation occurs at random times and is not regulated leading to inconsistent benefit closed-loop stimulation allows park and his team to work with the intrinsic movement of the colon and augment the naturally occurring processes just at a decreased rate due to the patients injury
park and his team are still researching that strategic timing they are investigating when the colons sensory or motor signal is ready for augmented stimulation which can be a very complex answer as the colon is still a mystery to researchers in many ways
the motivation of this work is to offer spinal cord injury patients as well as their caregivers a higher quality of life park said park is a member of the texas a&m spinal cord initiative which fosters collaborative research to discover new treatments that promote recovery after spinal cord injury this work funded by the craig h neilsen foundation provides significant insight into the analysis of neural manipulation of the colon and improved quality of life for those affected by spinal cord injury it also shows great promise for largely impacting future research collaborators for this project include dr cedric geoffroy from the texas a&m college of medicine and dr byung-jun yoon from the texas a&m electrical and computer engineering department
dr xuejun zhu assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university was awarded a welch foundation grant to help uncover and characterize enzymes involved in modifications that lead to pharmaceutical ineffectiveness in turn this could help medical professionals prescribe medications based on an individuals gut characteristics in the futurecertain bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract can decrease the effectiveness of pharmaceuticals potentially causing treatment delays and adverse impacts on individuals physical and mental health despite research that suggests bacterial enzymes are responsible for modifying the structures and properties of small-molecule pharmaceuticals these enzymes remain poorly understoodthere are many pharmaceuticals that are becoming increasingly ineffective said zhu they can even have side effects partly due to certain modifications of the pharmaceuticals by some gut bacteria the key player in these modifications are enzymes a kind of protein found in bacteria our goal is to determine which enzymes are involved in these changeshowever there are hundreds of enzymes making it difficult to decipher which enzymes are responsible for causing modifications to help determine these specific enzymes zhu and her team will expose substrate specificities the feature of an enzyme to select the kind of substrate to allow a chemical reactiononce they uncover which enzymes are responsible for modifying pharmaceuticals they will use the information to help predict the enzymes unique sequence fingerprints which determine the substrate specificity and will ease future enzyme discoverymoving forward this research could potentially change the way medicines are prescribed to enhance the effectiveness of medications based on the enzymes in an individuals gutfor example if we have a fecal sample we can sequence the dna or rna to see which enzymes could be abundant said zhu based on that information we will be able to determine whether an enzyme will degrade the medication or will likely be more effective this will hopefully help ensure that what is being prescribed is the most effective treatment for an individualthe welch foundation is one of the largest private funding resources for chemical research in texas the grant supports researchers within the state of texas who are making significant contributions to chemistry
a plan from texas a&m university researchers to 3d print new resilient buildings using hempcrete has the potential to lower the environmental impact of traditional construction methods and make housing more affordable and availablethe project will be funded by a $374 million grant from the us department of energy advanced research projects agency-energy (arpa-e) harnessing emissions into structures taking inputs from the atmosphere (hestia) programdr petros sideris assistant professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering will lead the project as principal investigator to develop residential and potential commercial construction designs his team consists of assistant professor dr maria koliou department head and professor dr zachary grasley and professor dr anand puppala from the department and associate professor dr manish dixit and professor dr wei yan from the texas a&m college of architecturehempcrete is made by mixing hemp powder fibers or shives with lime and water creating a lightweight green building material
"""while production of conventional construction materials such as concrete requires large amounts of energy and releases large amounts of co2 (carbon dioxide) hempcrete is a net carbon-negative material which can provide major environmental benefits "" sideris saidsustainability will be further promoted by designing hempcrete structures more resilient to natural hazards than commonly used lightweight wood frame construction""resilience to natural hazards is intertwined with environmental sustainability because building damage and subsequent repairs due to extreme events such as hurricanes result in major environmental impacts "" sideris said"
"hempcrete has already been used globally in residential construction and prefabricated modular construction""hempcrete has excellent fire resistance and thermal insulating properties that can reduce heating and cooling energy demands "" he said ""it is water-resistant and offers good acoustic properties""as part of the project building designs will be printable and created to achieve structural and energy performance that will comply with modern design codes sideris said digital designs of printable hempcrete buildings will facilitate adoption by the construction industry ""the advancements of this project will contribute to the us maintaining its worldwide leadership in advanced construction methods and infrastructure sustainability and resilient technologies "" he saidthe funding is part of hestia which prioritizes overcoming barriers associated with carbon-storing buildings including scarce expensive and geographically limited building materials the hestia program aims to increase the total amount of carbon stored in buildings to create carbon sinks which absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than released during construction"
a white mineral ring as tall as the statue of liberty creeps up the steep shoreline of lake mead a colorado river reservoir just east of las vegas on the nevada-arizona border it is the countrys largest reservoir and its draining rapidlywith much of the country experiencing above-normal temperatures below-average rainfall and a changing climate it is vital that water management decision-makers have accurate informationled by dr huilin gao associate professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university researchers created the global lake evaporation volume (glev) dataset it leverages modeling and remote sensing to provide the first long-term monthly time series for 142 million individual natural lakes and artificial reservoirs worldwidethe researchers published their findings in nature communicationsabout 87% of fresh surface water in liquid form is stored in natural and artificial lakes (ie reservoirs) while the evaporation volume from these global lakes is substantial little is known about its spatial distribution and its long-term trend from 1985 to 2018 researchers discovered that long-term average lake evaporation volume has increased at a rate of 312 cubic kilometers per year the trend attributions include an increased evaporation rate of 58% decreased lake ice coverage of 23% and increased lake surface area of 19%the results from the study underline the importance of using evaporation volume (rather than evaporation rate) as the primary index for assessing climatic impacts on lake systems we found that the long-term lake evaporation is 1500 plus or minus 150 cubic kilometers per year which is 154% larger than previous estimates said first author dr gang zhao a texas a&m former student who is now a postdoctoral fellow in the department of global ecology at the carnegie institute for science this suggests that lake evaporation plays a larger role in the hydrological cycle than previously thought
"according to glev 6 715 reservoirs only account for 5% of the water storage capacity and 10% of the surface area of all lakes (both natural and artificial) however reservoirs contribute 16% to the evaporation volume this quantity of reservoir evaporative loss is equivalent to 20% of the global annual consumption of water use in the last 33 years evaporative water loss from reservoirs has been increasing at a rate of 54% per year outpacing the global trend of 21% for all lakes ""with regard to evaporation loss this study will be an invaluable venue to serve water resources researchers and decision-makers "" gao said ""our findings have significant environmental societal and economic implications as the global evaporative loss will be accelerated and further exacerbated in the future under global warming ""from a global perspective the total reservoir evaporation can be larger than the combined use of domestic and industrial water however even in the united states very few lakes/reservoirs have reliable evaporation data"""
"without accurately quantifying the magnitude and trend of volumetric evaporation loss individually for the millions of global lakes researchers say reliable water and energy resources projections can't be made this freely available dataset can benefit decision-makers and the wider science community""with results for individual water bodies glev can really help improve reservoir management decision-making all over the world especially under increasing drought events and population growth "" gao said ""this dataset helps the science community better understand the role that these water bodies play in earth systems from global weather forecasting flood and drought modeling to earth system modeling under climate change"" for future work texas a&m researchers the desert research institute and the us bureau of reclamation recently started a nearly $1 million nasa applied science project that focuses on developing satellite-assisted operational daily reservoir evaporation monitoring and forecasts for the western united states the team will also expand an ongoing daily reservoir monitoring project for texas other contributors to this research are dr yao li a postdoctoral research associate in the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m and dr liming zhou a professor in the atmospheric and environmental sciences department at the state university of new york at albany this research is funded by nasa the department of energy and the national science foundation"
texas a&m university is leading the second stage of a widely collaborative science mission to better understand elements of hypersonic flight bolt ii a suborbital sounding rocket was designed to provide information about boundary layer turbulence (bolt ii) during hypersonic flight the flight experiment managed by the air force research laboratory (afrl)/air force office of scientific research (afosr) launched on march 21 from the nasa wallops flight facility in virginia the successful 10-minute flight brings in new scientific data to further our understanding of drag and heating at hypersonic conditions dr rodney bowersox professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m served as the lead principal investigator (pi) for this effort drs helen reed and edward white professors in the aerospace engineering department were co-pis on the projects aerospace engineering graduate students heather kostak bryan morreale john wirth daniel mullen and eric swinny all played integral roles in the three phases of the experiment this project provided a great opportunity for the students and faculty to better understand the steps teaming and attention to detail required for a successful flight experiment said bowersox this team interacted on a weekly basis with the air force calspan-university of buffalo research center (cubrc) nasa and nasa sounding rocket operations contact the result was a successful hypersonic flight experiment and i am incredibly proud of the entire team
"mapping out dynamics one of the most important questions that needed to be answered before launch day was will the rocket fly straight according to bryan morreale a doctoral student in the aerospace engineering department that's a harder question to answer than one might think especially because of the unique geometry of bolt ii ""my main contribution was looking at the external aerodynamics of the whole flight system "" said morreale ""myself and another graduate student eric swinny generated aerodynamic databases to determine the flight performance of the rocket"" morreale and swinny worked closely with experts from nasa wallops and the johns hopkins university applied physics laboratory (jhuapl) to determine the flight stability for bolt ii ""one of the most important things about bolt ii is that it's an unclassified problem for the community to all work on together "" said morreale ""i came into this with limited knowledge but i left knowing unbelievable amounts more from having access to the nation's best and brightest engineers working on these problems"" morreale was also a key player in helping to determine where to place the more than 400 sensors and instruments on the vehicle ""we have the rocket and at the end of the rocket we have the bolt ii payload which has these swept leading edges "" he said ""the edges cause the air to rush in and create a very complicated flow pattern so what the instrument designers want is to get a rough idea of what the air will do at a specific moment in flight"" to help them determine the best way to capture information during the flight he developed higher fidelity fluid dynamics simulations that could explain what the flow over the vehicle's surface would look like"
"laying the groundwork the placement of those 400-plus sensors was critical to the success of the flight mission to create a wealth of data from this experiment the vehicle had two different instrument layouts one side of the vehicle was designed to capture the natural breakdown to turbulence during flight the other side served as a trip side that captured data from forced transition and turbulence during hypersonic flight heather kostak 16 20 22 a former student from the aerospace engineering department was in charge of instrumenting the natural side which would be equipped with the majority of the sensors she looked at ground test data and simulations to inform the instrumentation layout ""we first tested in the wind tunnels at texas a&m and on just a rough 3d-printed model we saw breakdown "" said kostak ""this breakdown informed us that we need to place instruments in that region to see what modal growth and instabilities are present"" she also relied on the data from morreale's and mullens simulations for laminar and turbulent flow along with results from jhuapl and her knowledge from previously working on bolt after instrumenting the entire vehicle kostak and their team traveled to new york to test the full-scale vehicle at cubrc ""we tested the entire flight vehicle with all of the instrumentation which has not been done before so that was a really unique opportunity to be a part of "" said kostak because of their ability to replicate expected bolt ii flight conditions in cubrc's facilities researchers now have the opportunity to compare more precise data between the flight experiment and ground tests ""that's the whole picture all together "" said kostak ""how did the flight data compare to our simulations and ground test work are we predicting what actually caused transition to turbulence on the flight vehicle that's what i'm curious about because that will impact the aerospace industry"""
"drumming up the data the successful launch of bolt ii brings in unprecedented data for the teams to begin processing and breaking down air force 1st lt john wirth a doctoral student in the aerospace engineering department is one of the first to look at this information ""we have some excellent data and i'm really excited to see how it all lines up "" said wirth ""you have this complicated 3d geometry with a lot going on so step number one is just to look at the flight trajectory"" wirth's role is to take the exponential amount of data from the flight test and reduce it to usable information he is working with partners at afrl nasa and cubrc to determine the angle of attack mach and altitude his role is to put the flight data through the 3d heat flux analysis he developed as part of his doctoral research ""if we can validate our theories and actually understand what's happening with the physics then we can make better engineering decisions and enable the next generation of hypersonics "" he said the data from bolt ii gives the hypersonics community real-world information that provides long-awaited answers and opens the door for new discoveries for wirth the opportunity to work directly with the flight experiment data alongside a collaborative team has been a uniquely rewarding experience ""it feels good being a part of a nationwide team doing something that's important for our whole country "" said wirth ""that definitely gives you a lot of satisfaction at the end of the day"" texas a&m is the first university to lead a flight test key collaborators on the science mission included cubrc nasa university of minnesota united states air force academy university of maryland university of arizona and jhuapl ""it is amazing to watch the students rise to the occasion and take the lead on critical elements of the bolt ii flight experiment said sarah popkin who oversees the project as afosrs program officer for high-speed aerodynamics the computational fluid dynamic simulations sensor placement to chase the science and data post-processing have all proven to be so important to our success these students and this project are a prime example of how afosr contributes to workforce development capacity building and creating the next generation of scientists and engineers"""
managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station under the leadership of bowersox the university consortium for applied hypersonics is a five-year $20 million-per-year us department of defense initiative for modernizing hypersonic flight capabilities learn more about texas a&ms hypersonic research and events
as the manufacturing industry shifts toward smart technologies and automation the threat of bad actors compromising industrial capability rises secureamerica institute (sai) partners at the ohio state university are developing an external system to predict robotic untrustworthiness and identify behavior that may indicate a cyber intrusion as part of sais nationwide project call to empower a secure domestic manufacturing enterprise as emerging technology is embraced on a global scale robots are becoming more intertwined into our daily lives said dr ted allen associate professor of industrial and systems engineering and computer science engineering at ohio state its imperative we monitor artificial intelligence and have the ability to shut down these systems independently should they become compromised robots can fail in ways that arent readily apparent and detecting faults is integral to keep operations secure and efficient the ohio state team leveraged low-cost camera systems and human biofeedback to predict and validate if robots were behaving in a trustworthy manner we launched an artificially intelligent manufacturing lab in 2019 where we implemented sensors and cameras to monitor operations and gather data to see if robots were behaving correctly said vimal buck senior researcher at ohio states center for design and manufacturing excellence its important to look at the software and determine if these automated systems were performing normally or if their behavior was indicative of the system being compromised buck and his team sought to incorporate a human element into the project concurrent with digital assessments we analyzed human feedback to determine if its possible for human beings to detect these types of sophisticated intrusions he said is it possible to predict the failure of robots by analyzing biosignals of operators around the world this is one of the questions we are hoping to answer computer systems can appear inscrutable and evaluating how researchers interact with robots was very important to us buck continued understanding the human physiological aspects of losing trust with these systems is important for us to think about moving forward the research team also deployed tactics to investigate robotic cybersecurity boundaries using two types of threat testing: tabletop attacks and replay attacks during a replay attack hackers tap into the physical lines connecting a computer to a robot in order to monitor send or change data and information a tabletop attack is geared more toward assessing vulnerabilities without actually executing an attack on a system the main driver of this project is an awareness of what is happening in your factory allen said digitization has catalyzed the democratization of programming talent this will be incredibly important as more small-to-medium manufacturers and small businesses adopt smart manufacturing practices they will be able to bridge the digital divide and keep their operations safe and efficient
when pointed to the ground most laser guidance will form a straight line at a lower speed but this line can be distorted with hypersonic vehicles a university of central florida team was recently awarded $500 000 from the department of defense via the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) to address disturbances that vehicles encounter in hypersonic conditions the project is led by dr subith vasu a professor at the university of central florida and an expert in spectroscopy and optical diagnostics the impact of this research will help quantify the deviation of laser guidance in hypersonic flight and assist with proper guidance and navigation for hypersonic vehicles learn more about this research on laser guidance and hypersonic flight
managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station ucah is a five-year $20 million-per-year us department of defense initiative for modernizing hypersonic flight capabilities
dr chris combs an expert in high-speed aerodynamics is leading a team from the university of texas at san antonio researching hypersonic separation events using modeling and experimental measurements partnered with lockheed martin the research team was awarded $15 million in 2020 by the department of defense through the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) which is administered by the texas a&m engineering experiment station this project is designed to study the separation of materials moving at hypersonic speeds a common challenge in hypersonic flight currently it is difficult to model these separations using computational models alone this research explores the common aerodynamic issue by using controlled hypersonic experiments and computational data to further examine stage separation booster drop-off and fairing separation the team will combine the experimental data and feed it into computations to improve models while insight from computations will guide targeted experiments learn more about this materials separation study
managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station the university consortium for applied hypersonics (ucah) is a five-year $20 million-per-year us department of defense initiative for modernizing hypersonic flight capabilities
dr gabriel xu an expert in experimental plasma science in-space electric propulsion and rotating detonation engines is leading a the university of alabama in huntsville (uah) research team exploring a solid-fuel rotating detonation ramjet technology the study combines the two technologies of solid fuel ramjets and rotating detonation engines to provide high-efficiency air-breathing propulsion using high-density fuel uniting these two concepts can improve the range of supersonic and hypersonic aircraft and missile systems awarded in 2021 by the department of defense through the university consortium for applied hypersonics a texas a&m engineering experiment station administered consortium the $15 million three-year project is led by the uah team who is conducting the experimental portions of the project while the industry partner cfd research corporation is conducting the computational modeling portion learn more about solid-fuel technology for hypersonic flight
managed by the texas a&m engineering experiment station the university consortium for applied hypersonics is a five-year $20 million-per-year us department of defense initiative for modernizing hypersonic flight capabilities
"dr tracy hammond professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received the 2022 distinguished achievement award for teaching from texas a&m and the association of former students since 1995 the award has been presented to recognize faculty and staff achievements in research individual student relationships continuing education/extension graduate mentoring staff and administration and is one of the highest university honors hammond was one of five faculty members in the college of engineering to be honored this year i am incredibly honored to receive this award and am grateful for my exceptional students who have been active collaborators in creating an inclusive classroom "" said hammond through her innovative work she has made significant contributions to improving engineering education at texas a&m her engineering education research has been implemented at high schools and universities including texas a&m georgia tech texas state university san jose state university and letourneau university hammond is an international leader in artificial intelligence data science activity recognition (focusing on eye body and sketch motions) machine learning haptics intelligent fabrics smartphone development and computer-human interaction research her publications on these subjects have been widely cited hammond also serves as director of the institute for engineering education and innovation and the sketch recognition lab at texas a&m"
the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) and the university of texas at arlington (uta) have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a framework for increasing collaboration to expand the aerospace defense manufacturing community in texas uta holds the cooperative agreement for texas with the national institute of standards and technology manufacturing extension partnership (nist mep) which provides the funding for the texas manufacturing assistance center (tmac) the mep affiliate in texas tmac connects manufacturers with technology and operations opportunities and solutions needed to compete in the global marketplace tees powers a public-private research collaborative called the secure america institute (sai) this institute converges industry government and academia to integrate advancements in us manufacturing resilience particularly within the us defense industrial base working with our strategic partners at tmac will enhance the development of the aerospace defense manufacturing community through the application of advanced technology and workforce training said scott terry sai director of community and small business initiatives by infusing smart manufacturing tools and processes into the manufacturing industrial base we can solidify texas leadership role in the global manufacturing economy sai and tmac are both working to empower the texas manufacturing industrial base by introducing and implementing advanced manufacturing technologies and workforce training this will help improve overall throughput quality and delivery lead time for texas manufacturers which in turn improves their profitability and sustainability tmac will work with tees to become an integral partner in driving the development of advanced manufacturing technology and workforce training for the aerospace and defense industrial base across the state said rodney reddic tmac interim executive director the partnership with tees will allow tmac to reach additional manufacturers across the state through the many workshops and seminars sponsored jointly tmac will provide boots on the ground field staff support for the delivery of advanced manufacturing technology services cybersecurity services and workforce training through this agreement sai and tmac will promote and host events for advanced manufacturing technology and workforce training across the state of texas focused on the aerospace manufacturing community the agency will also partner with various entities including k-12 schools colleges universities and industry partners to drive the development of advanced manufacturing technology workforce training to help create the aerospace industrial base workforce of the future tees is an active member of manufacturing usa through key positions in america makes advanced robotics manufacturing biofabusa clean energy smart manufacturing innovation institute the national institute for innovation in manufacturing biopharmaceuticals and the rapid advancement in process intensification deployment institute
dr guofei gu professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university is the lead principal investigator of a research team that has received a $1 million grant from the national science foundation's (nsf) resilient and intelligent next-generation systems (rings) program to enhance the security of future wireless and mobile network systems the rings program seeks to ensure the security and resiliency of next-generation (nextg) wireless and mobile communication sensing computing and networking systems that will support essential services nextg systems are expected to connect billions of internet of things devices and users and provide personalized computational and storage resources for highly critical data in real time with little delay in order to host so many application services nextg will use edge computing which refers to computing services that are physically located near the user or source of the data instead of miles away at the core of a traditional cloud data system this way the corresponding device can provide quick responses for example future autonomous vehicles may require nextg to support application services to perform computations store and process critical data from their various sensors manage vehicle-to-vehicle communications and run their deep-learning algorithms to ensure that the billions of nextg-supported services remain scalable and reliable it will feature microservice architecture which is composed of a single application or service divided into smaller independent processes (microservices) that each has a specific purpose they are reusable and can be made quickly to meet demand in addition if a single microservice fails it will not cause the entire application or service to crash however existing microservice architecture is not typically developed and deployed with built-in security measures while basic security patches are available on demand to add after the fact they are not enough to support the large volumes of critical services that nextg hosts to address these issues the team has proposed to develop a new framework nextsec to transform the microservices into self-protecting entities that can do security enhancement protection on their own using the concept of security transformation in addition to security transformation nextsec also provides new primitives for supporting a software-defined way of enforcing user-to-edge-to-cloud security and offers efficient scalable verification of complex security properties across microservices nextsec is an ambitious attempt to build revolutionary capabilities for securing critical services in nextg as well as generic edge and cloud computing said gu this project will provide a solid foundation and collaborative community for future system and network security research the co-principal investigators on the project funded through the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) include associate professor dr jeff huang and assistant professor dr chia-che tsai from the computer science and engineering department and dr walter magnussen director of the texas a&m internet2 technology evaluation center for the rings program the nsf partners with the us department of defenses office of the under secretary of defense for research and engineering the national institute of standards and technology and several industry partners such as apple ericsson google ibm intel microsoft nokia qualcomm and vmware
with the record-breaking heat and drought weather conditions texas is currently facing finding a solution to the growing need for reliable power from the electric grid is at an equally all-time high dr thomas overbye professor and odonnell foundation chair iii in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and director of the texas a&m engineering experiment stations smart grid center is investigating a novel way that historical weather can play a crucial role in benefiting the grid today in particular he is researching the outlier weather conditions such as the extreme heat texas is currently experiencing or very low temperatures such as those experienced in february 2021 during winter storm uri according to the world meteorological organization the number of recorded disasters in north america central america and the caribbean has increased from a disaster occurring every 30 days on average in the 1970s to every seven days for the three decades between 1990 and 2019 while these extreme weather events used to be relatively infrequent their incidence is growing making it vital to include this historical data in the power flow to better safeguard the grid of tomorrow
weather information has been used in electric grid planning and operations since the 1880s however no one has yet introduced the idea of incorporating this information into the power flow or load flow of the grid which is a system used to determine how the power flows from the generators through the transmission system to the distribution system (which is then used by consumers) this project funded by the power systems engineering research center introduces the inclusion of historical weather data in the power flow which will provide more context for power engineers and grid operators to effectively manage the electric grid during these extreme weather events and a chance for more informed decisions the power flow is one of the most common tools used to study and design large-scale high-voltage electric grids and includes several algorithms models data and the associated human-machine interface used by power engineers in order to include weather information in a power flow model there is a need for adequate weather data and models of how the weather impacts the grid components as well as the ability to map the weather information to relevant electric grid components overbyes approach to including weather data in the power flow is demonstrated on several electric grids ranging in size from 7 000 to 82 000 buses or nodes that connect several lines and components using weather data over several different years his findings conclude that with little changes to existing models the weather can be easily incorporated into the power flow algorithms to provide vast benefits to the power industry and energy consumers it is widely recognized that weather impacts human activity and subsequent power usage and operations further wind and solar generation continue to grow currently providing more than 14% of the united states electric energy in turn increasing the grids dependence on these sources overbye has been pursuing research related to the power flow for over 40 years but his interest in the integration of weather information began as a result of winter storm uri in order to prevent situations like what was experienced during winter storm uri you have to get a good feel for how likely these weather events are and if you know how likely they are then you can take that into account in your planning said overbye
in a state as vast as texas temperatures can be extreme from the daunting heat of long summer days to record-breaking cold snaps the drastic fluctuation has the potential to adversely affect infrastructure it is a combination of materials and landscape said dr anand puppala interim director for the center for infrastructure renewal (cir) at the texas a&m engineering experiment station and professor in the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering at texas a&m university whether it is underground piping providing water and electricity or roadway surfaces for commuters the environment and changing weather patterns play a significant role in the resiliency of materials traditionally used for infrastructure research underway at the cir located at the texas a&m-rellis campus encompasses all aspects of infrastructure from concrete and asphalt to plastics and polymer additives with a targeted outcome of developing sustainable options an interdisciplinary network of experts collaborates to form new methodologies improve longevity and initiate comprehensive test cases learning how to design materials that can withstand a broad range of change expansion contraction of soil or extreme hot and cold temperatures helps shape our research said puppala access to laboratories with specific testing capabilities like corrosion controlled temperature pods and more allows us to scale up our testing and expedites our ability to respond to industry and government needs
geotechnical and unbound materials research in june 2022 residents of odessa a city in west texas experienced firsthand the detrimental impact of degrading infrastructure when a water main failed leaving 165 000 homes and businesses without potable water for more than 24 hours in addition to the material composition of the water lines themselves the expansion and contraction of the soil plays a role in how long underground utility lines can last
from the geotechnical perspective we are exploring how additives may stabilize different soil types and compositions to reduce the stress placed on the lines underground said puppala we simulate the real-life fluctuation of soil conditions to see if and how the additives reduce the effects of soil shifting in seasons of drought and flooding like underground utilities residential home foundations are susceptible to the adverse effects of soil compound expansion and contraction puppala leads an industry-university cooperative research centers (iucrc) program initiated by the national science foundation (nsf) in 1973 to strategically integrate industry academia and government partners his area of focus is on the use of polymeric composite products to strengthen geo and civil infrastructure foundations shift and are exposed to differing temperatures both above and below the grounds surface said puppala through nsf iucrc-sponsored research we are scaling up a thermo-block insulation application that helps reduce heat absorbed by structures to help prevent cracking and foundation maintenance needed or at the very least prolong the life of the slab before repairs are necessary advancements like these can bring relief to both new and existing infrastructure through implementation at the design phase or retrofitting as needed
manufacturing and materials research parallel to the impacts of geotechnical components identifying the resiliency of material types and their reaction to different elements found within the soil is important dr homero castaneda-lopez leads the national corrosion and materials reliability lab a cir facility that provides small- to full-scale testing for industry government and academic partners we help identify how different materials from metal piping and plastic casing to concrete and asphalt respond in corrosive and extreme environments said castaneda-lopez bringing together the data of geotechnical impacts and corrosion helps us see how materials and civil engineers can work in tandem to develop more resilient infrastructure materials
health monitoring of the infrastructure is an important aspect of quantifying and characterizing an assets reliability data from this proactive measure provides insight into the sustainability of current structures and directly influences the environmental impact of the degradation process this same interdisciplinary approach applies to testing concrete and asphalt for roadway surfaces and bridges research into the use of polymers is underway to see how different additives can preclude bleeding of asphalt pavements and provide pliability in concrete structures while maintaining their structural integrity ­during high temperatures a portion of a state highway in east texas began to ‘melt in june 2022 as a result of prolonged and extreme heat while this was actually the asphalt binder rising to the surface due to high temperatures it forced lane closures and delayed the traffic flow so crews could address the issue considering that the texas department of transportation has 80 444 centerline miles of highways and more than 35 000 bridges to maintain across the state with 540 million vehicle miles traveled annually there is a vested interest in reducing the need for maintenance through improved materials selection and engineering of materials combinations identifying materials that can withstand a volatile change in temperatures is a focus of the integrated network of researchers at the cir said dr zachary grasley department head and professor of the civil and environmental engineering department at texas a&m reducing the cost and carbon footprint of infrastructure materials also ties into the sustainability aspect of this infrastructure research dr petros sideris assistant professor in the civil and environmental engineering department is leading a us department of energy advanced research projects agency-energy study using hempcrete for residential and commercial construction designs hempcrete and other materials with a negative or low carbon footprint can lead to designs that combine sustainability and resilience for our structures and infrastructure said sideris this could provide a path to addressing the impacts of climate change on our infrastructure with an estimated cost of $259 trillion for current us infrastructure needs the cir provides a network of researchers and laboratories equipped to meet todays challenges by adapting for the needs of tomorrow
while advanced manufacturing provides increased access to product replication and the agility to pivot when the product needs to be changed the risk for counterfeit production rises secureamerica institute (sai) texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) researchers and their partners at new york university (nyu) are developing techniques that successfully embed markers into 3d-printed products so customers can verify that items received are not counterfeit this research is part of sais nationwide project call to empower a secure and resilient domestic manufacturing enterprise manufacturing-as-a-service (maas) connects designers manufacturers customers and consumers streamlining the process from design to delivery this widely accessible technology also creates added layers of vulnerability and opportunity for counterfeit product dissemination the risk of counterfeit products for items like automotive parts electronics safety equipment and medicine are of particular concern especially with increased maas technology use said dr ramesh karri professor co-founder and co-chair of the nyu center for cybersecurity and principal investigator for this project identifying techniques that reduce these risks will protect manufacturers customers and consumers as we ensure product needs are met safely the global market for advanced manufacturing is expected to grow from $195 billion in 2021 to $561 billion by 2026 indicating a greater need for built-in security measures for domestic manufacturing in addition physical supply chains are being supplanted by cyber-enabled smart manufacturing supply chains where digital objects are transmitted via shared cloud storage then transformed into physical objects at the place and time of need this project outlines how to enhance and test cybersecurity while assuring that it is considered and built into manufacturing systems the technique of embedding unique signatures within the 3d-printed product begins with design files and a trusted pool of registered manufacturers within the maas platform intrinsic signatures provide anti-counterfeit marks in the final product making it much more difficult for the part to be reverse engineered said dr satish bukkapatnam director of the tees institute for manufacturing systems and professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university customers can validate that their product was manufactured from an authentic design source by comparing the embedded signature from the maas platform to the scanned signature of the products received the manufacturing process itself plays an important role in implementing this technique said bukkapatnam how products are manufactured determines not only how and what type of signatures can be created or embedded but also how precisely those markers can be placed these manufacturing-related aspects have not been considered in many earlier studies within the maas platform each step leading to a product being manufactured is automated once a customer initiates a request the appropriate design files are chosen and then shared for production where both the designer and manufacturer are registered as authentic parties within that maas platform a key indicating the unique identifiers is then shared with the customer when production begins so the authenticity comparison can be completed at delivery to test the reliability and scalability of their project the research team completed a red-team-blue-team exercise where the red team represented bad actors and the blue team represented the network of defense within two datasets including 4 440 models and six different types of defects the blue team used statistical analysis and machine learning to successfully identify the faults introduced prior to printing we know the vulnerabilities within manufacturing cyberphysical systems and the feasible defense strategies we can deploy to protect the integrity of goods produced using smart manufacturing said dr nikhil gupta professor at nyu-tandon school of engineering now we have the framework and testbed to support manufacturers in stress-testing their legacy and emerging smart manufacturing standards components and systems for built-in security sai will be able to offer this red-team-blue-team testbed as a service for small- to medium-sized enterprises and us smart manufacturing partners at-large in addition to developing and testing the feasibility of embedded signatures the tees research team explored the use of explainable artificial intelligence- (xai) infused scanning to more efficiently detect internal markers using ultrasound imaging scanning was completed faster and with an accuracy rate of more than 80% detecting internal signatures remains an area of research focus as current methods are either too expensive too slow or not precise this xai-infused ultrasonic inspection technique is now in the process of being patented to help support this area of need for internal signature detection
texas a&m university and arizona state university (asu) are collaborating on a $48 million multidisciplinary project funded by the defense advanced research projects agencys (darpa) biological technology office to create artificial intelligence (ai) for detecting fatigued states using human breath the project aims to better understand sleep deprivation mental and physical fatigue in humans by measuring breath volatile organic compounds (voc) biomarkers and how they can affect performance especially in high-stakes environments understanding the breath vocs will enable researchers to create a set of ai algorithms to detect a persons fatigued state fatigue is an important topic for the us department of defense and many other sectors in our society yet it is very challenging to quantify fatigue i am pleased to see the darpas investment in our rigorous scientific approach and its trust in our world-class team said dr roozbeh jafari tim and amy leach professor in texas a&ms college of engineering and the projects principal investigator dr steven riechman associate professor of kinesiology in texas a&ms school of education and human development said the insights may lead to new opportunities for monitoring and predicting fatigue by using wearables to prevent catastrophic failures he also said there may be new ways to intervene against fatigue to improve resilience in challenging environments and circumstances comprehensively examining the change in breath vocs during the progression from rest to fatigue will provide valuable insights into the transitions in metabolic states riechman said according to the projects proposal these compounds have been used before to detect other health issues such as bowel inflammation and asthma they will be key resources of chemical information from all body systems the project will be phased from a highly controlled environment leading to less-controlled real-life settings texas a&m researchers will collect participants breath voc samples at different states of fatigue with machines that can detect vocs in the breath samples they will use wearable monitors and sensors to measure heart rate body temperature and other biometrics dr ranjana mehta associate professor in the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and director of texas a&ms neuroergonomics laboratory will lead the creation and execution of fatigue protocols with riechman by inducing fatigue in a highly controlled environment this project will not only enable us to develop breath and physiological biomarkers of fatigue in general and military populations but also expand our understanding of the interactions between fatigue due to a variety of sources mehta said dr arul jayaraman executive associate dean of the texas a&m college of engineering and chemical engineering professor and dr heather bean asu associate professor in the school of life science and the biodesign center for fundamental and applied microbiomics will measure vocs in the breath samples bean says the volume and combination of breath samples at different stages of fatigue protocols will help to advance the understanding of breath vocs beyond the ability to predict fatigue this study will generate more than 3 000 breath samples which is an order of magnitude larger than any breath voc study published to date said bean the team will use pattern recognition and statistical modeling to identify vocs that can detect and discriminate the types of fatigue studied during the course of the project said dr ivan ivanov clinical professor of physiology and pharmacology at the school of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences jafari will lead the project alongside co-investigators mehta jayaraman riechman bean and ivanov
the covid-19 pandemic exposed the inability of national supply chains to quickly shift production and reconfigure their logistics networks to meet customer demand surges during major disruptive events the desperate scramble for items such as ventilators face masks and even toilet paper wont soon be forgotten but the recent baby formula shortage points to a larger underlying problem with a supply chain model that prioritizes being efficient and cost-effective without accommodating the additional needs for resilience and robustness but what if it was possible to proactively plan and reactively respond and recover as quickly as possible following a supply chain disruption by further employing automation and robotics at key stages of the supply chain in response to recommendations outlined in the report of the defense critical supply chain task force the secureamerica institute (sai) and the advanced robotics for manufacturing (arm) institute are partnering with industry leaders like general electric (ge) to make targeted supply chain improvements the robotics and automation decision framework for agility and resilience (radar) which is funded by the us department of commerces national institute of standards and technology (nist) plans to demonstrate the power of strategically adopting robotic and automation solutions across the supply chain led by dr lefteris iakovou sais manufacturing supply chain director and the harvey hubbell professor of industrial distribution in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university radar will demonstrate two-way visibility into and across critical supply chains to determine where the most impactful suppliers vulnerabilities and interventions could exist following black swan disruptions like covid-19 since over 98% of suppliers in the us are small and medium-sized manufacturers (smms) according to the us census bureaus 2018 county business patterns survey establishing an understanding of what makes them more agile and cost-competitive is key to realizing the vision of this program the utilization of flexible and collaborative robotics technologies to automate factory operations in the radar program has the potential for significant return on investments across multiple product lines regardless of the size of the company said dr prabhakar pagilla professor in the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering and associate dean for research in the texas a&m university college of engineering the radar program can uncover which characteristics and attributes companies should incorporate to increase their likelihood of successfully adopting robotics and automation in collaborative (human and robot) manufacturing environments an imperfect understanding of existing constraints incentives opportunities and risks that can impact supply chains currently prevents many smms from fully embracing their technical innovation capabilities and contributes to end-to-end supply chain resilience for instance during some of the darkest days of the covid-19 pandemic large automobile manufacturers were able to pivot their production lines to produce ventilators however many smms lack the scale know-how and support to fully explore their ability to be similarly agile radar aims to productize the agile operational models of larger organizations so smms are also able to pivot as needed during the covid-19 pandemic ge researchers developed a robust pandemic simulation of the supply chain volatility our industries experienced we think that simulation can be applied in the radar project to enable more intelligent production management for future pandemics said walter yund senior scientist in enterprise operations research at ge research by merging ge researchs pandemic simulation with existing hospital and covid-19 supply chain data this model could offer key insights for manufacturers to anticipate future demand and determine which elements of their supply chain are most at risk of a material shortage formalizing that decision-making process for smms also opens up more opportunities for cross-collaboration not just in times of crisis but for innovation overall sai successfully demonstrated this idea on a small scale for rapid product development with the covid-19 breathalyzer kiosk which connected several seemingly disparate organizations and people to create a unique new technology during a time of need radar also seeks to redesign supply chains critical to the security of the nation without reverting to pre-pandemic practices bolstered by a framework of dynamically resilient data-driven supply chain networks radar will support the quick detection of disruptive events efficient increasing of manufacturing capacity where needed and reduction of manufacturing capacity once recovery has been attained the defense industrial base looks holistically at the united states true manufacturing capabilities so improving the resilience and competitiveness of the domestic supply chain will have national security implications radar is on track to improve the resiliency flexibility and competitiveness of smms and is envisioned to enhance the resilience of the us manufacturing industrial base when the next supply chain disruption materializes this research is supported by a $5 million grant from nist the funding is provided by the american rescue act and is part of a larger $54 million initiative by nist to award high-impact projects for pandemic response research and development across eight manufacturing institutes in the manufacturing usa network
gas turbines are widely used for power generation and aircraft propulsion according to the laws of thermodynamics the higher the temperature of an engine the higher the efficiency because of these laws there is an emerging interest in increasing turbines operating temperature a team of researchers from the department of materials science and engineering at texas a&m university in conjunction with researchers from ames national laboratory have developed an artificial intelligence framework capable of predicting high entropy alloys (heas) that can withstand extremely high temperature oxidizing environments this method could significantly reduce the time and costs of finding alloys by decreasing the number of experimental analyses required this research was recently published in material horizons under prolonged high-temperature conditions turbine blades can result in catastrophic failure from melting or oxidizing unfortunately current turbine blade materials have already reached their operational limit engineering advancements such as coatings and cooling channels have delayed the need for changing the materials used for turbines however air travel is expected to double in volume over the next decade and gas turbines are becoming an increasingly dominant technology for power generation therefore turbines require higher efficiency to reduce fuel usage and limit carbon dioxide emissions gas turbines function by converting chemical energy into mechanical motion but are limited by their temperature threshold said dr raymundo arroyave professor in the department of materials science and engineering the next step of revolutionizing turbine technology is to change the material that is used to fabricate components such as the blades so that they can operate at higher temperatures without oxidizing catastrophically when looking at different types of alloys for turbines there is significant attention around heas heas are concentrated alloys that do not have a clear majority element a unique characteristic of heas is that these alloys become more stable at higher temperatures offering the potential for use in extreme environments despite their ability to withstand high temperatures heas are susceptible to rusting (oxidizing) heas can have many compositions exponentially expanding the types of oxides that can form finding a composition that could resist oxidation would require extensive experimentation at very high costs to circumvent the drawbacks and costs of hea discovery the researchers developed an artificial intelligence framework capable of predicting the oxidation behavior of heas this framework combining computational thermodynamics machine learning and quantum mechanics can quantitatively predict the oxidation of heas of arbitrary chemical compositions the time necessary to computationally screen the alloys is drastically reduced from years to mere minutes very fast and efficient screening in turn results in a reduced need for resource-intensive experimental trials when searching a large compositional space experimentalists would have to take hundreds of variations of a very complex material oxidize them and then characterize their performance which could take weeks months or even years said daniel sauceda a graduate student in the materials science and engineering department our research significantly shortened the process by creating a roadmap of the oxidation of heas showing researchers what you can expect from different compositions using the framework the researchers predicted the oxidation behavior of multiple alloy compositions they then sent the predictions to ames national laboratory's scientist gaoyuan ouyang and his team to test their findings and verify that the framework accurately demonstrates if an alloy would or would not resist oxidation the ability of the framework to accurately pinpoint detrimental phases will enable the design of improved oxidation-resistant materials said ames national laboratory scientist prashant singh who co-led the framework development the approach presented in this study is general and applicable to understanding oxidation behavior of heas as well as provide insights into oxidation and corrosion-resistant materials for other applications the tools developed in this study could potentially alter the process by which scientists discover materials for extreme environments by using artificial intelligence tools to rapidly siphon through astronomical numbers of alloys in a very short time this tool will help screen out alloys that will not work for our application needs while allowing us to spend more time and create a more detailed analysis of alloys that are worth investigating said arroyave while our predictions are not 100% accurate they still provide sufficient information to make informed decisions on what materials are worth investigating at a speed that would have been unthinkable before this framework was developed the heas found through this framework have potential applications such as gas turbines for propulsion and power generation heat exchangers and many others that require materials to withstand extreme operating conditions by enabling the discovery of materials capable of withstanding extreme environments this work directly contributes to the department of energys goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 said singh the joint work by texas a&m and ames national laboratory was supported by the ultrahigh temperature impervious materials advancing turbine efficiency program of the advanced research projects agency-energy the national science foundation and the us department of energy (basic energy science and fossil energy program) also supported this work
for years the nucleus within a cell was thought to be elastic like a rubber ball deforming and snapping back into shape as the cell navigated through pores and between fibers inside the human body researchers at texas a&m university and the university of florida have discovered that the nucleus is more complex than originally believed behaving more like a liquid drop than a rubber ball the discovery that the nucleus deforms like a liquid drop calls for a fresh look at how the nuclear shape becomes abnormal in diseases like cancer said dr tanmay lele unocal professor in the department of biomedical engineering lele a cancer prevention & research institute of texas (cprit) scholar is co-leading the team that uncovered the surprising mechanical behaviors of the nucleus their findings were published in advanced science in june 2022 the genetic material governing a cells function and behavior called the genome is safely stored in the nucleus nearly 150 years of looking through microscopes has taught pathologists and researchers that misshapen nuclei are warning signs of diseases like cancer cancer cells with such abnormal nuclei are able to migrate to other parts of the body in a process called cancer metastasis a spreading that can be lethal nuclear shape observations are used in cancer diagnosis even today but why nuclei become abnormal has remained unclear understanding how nuclei become misshapen may help uncover a way to aid cell nuclei in regaining their normal shapes leading to new approaches for treating cancer the findings from this study are critical to understanding how a protective layer surrounding the nucleus called the lamina helps preserve nuclear shape while cells crawl through the tortuous paths through pores and around tissue fibers
lele and his fellow researchers began their exploration of nuclear behaviors by placing fibroblasts the most common type of connective-tissue cells in animals into a miniature obstacle course of tiny flexible pillars 1/100th of the width of a human hair in order for the cells to crawl through this obstacle course their nuclei had to squeeze in between the pillars the researchers observed the movements with an advanced high-resolution microscope that could image the 3d shapes of the nuclei imaging revealed that the pillars created deep indentations into the nuclear surface yet the overall nuclear shape was preserved allowing the nucleus to successfully pass like a liquid drop and unlike a springy elastic rubber ball through the obstacles the research also revealed that a depletion of lamin a/c one of the normal protein components of lamina caused the nuclei to get entangled in the obstacles the discovery suggests that lamin a/c helps maintain the surface tension of the nuclear drop our work points to a fundamental mechanism by which the nucleus preserves its shape and protects its genome lele said our discovery also helps us better understand how misshapen nuclei arise in cancer and how to potentially make them normal again we are now studying the implications of the drop model for the abnormal nuclear shapes commonly observed in cancer the work is financially supported by a grant from the national cancer institutes physical sciences oncology network to lele along with additional support from the national science foundation to co-principal investigator dr richard b dickinson professor in the department of chemical engineering at the university of florida the research is also partially funded by a cprit established investigator award to lele facilitated through the texas a&m engineering experiment station aside from lele and dickinson principal investigators and researchers on this project include drs pushkar p lele cynthia a reinhart-king kyle j roux and nathan j sniadecki students include aditya katiyar (lead author on the paper) jian zhang jyot d antani yifan yu and kelsey l scott
flexible electronics have enabled the design of sensors actuators microfluidics and electronics on flexible conformal and/or stretchable sublayers for wearable implantable or ingestible applications however these devices have very different mechanical and biological properties when compared to human tissue and thus cannot be integrated with the human body a team of researchers at texas a&m university has developed a new class of biomaterial inks that mimic native characteristics of highly conductive human tissue much like skin which are essential for the ink to be used in 3d printing this biomaterial ink leverages a new class of 2d nanomaterials known as molybdenum disulfide (mos2) the thin-layered structure of mos2 contains defect centers to make it chemically active and combined with modified gelatin to obtain a flexible hydrogel comparable to the structure of jell-o the impact of this work is far-reaching in 3d printing said dr akhilesh gaharwar associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering and presidential impact fellow this newly designed hydrogel ink is highly biocompatible and electrically conductive paving the way for the next generation of wearable and implantable bioelectronics this study was recently published in acs nano
the ink has shear-thinning properties that decrease in viscosity as force increases so it is solid inside the tube but flows more like a liquid when squeezed similar to ketchup or toothpaste the team incorporated these electrically conductive nanomaterials within a modified gelatin to make a hydrogel ink with characteristics that are essential for designing ink conducive to 3d printing these 3d-printed devices are extremely elastomeric and can be compressed bent or twisted without breaking said kaivalya deo graduate student in the biomedical engineering department and lead author of the paper in addition these devices are electronically active enabling them to monitor dynamic human motion and paving the way for continuous motion monitoring in order to 3d print the ink researchers in the gaharwar laboratory designed a cost-effective open-source multi-head 3d bioprinter that is fully functional and customizable running on open-source tools and freeware this also allows any researcher to build 3d bioprinters tailored to fit their own research needs the electrically conductive 3d-printed hydrogel ink can create complex 3d circuits and is not limited to planar designs allowing researchers to make customizable bioelectronics tailored to patient-specific requirements in utilizing these 3d printers deo was able to print electrically active and stretchable electronic devices these devices demonstrate extraordinary strain-sensing capabilities and can be used for engineering customizable monitoring systems this also opens up new possibilities for designing stretchable sensors with integrated microelectronic components one of the potential applications of the new ink is in 3d printing electronic tattoos for patients with parkinsons disease researchers envision that this printed e-tattoo can monitor a patients movement including tremors this project is in collaboration with dr anthony guiseppi-elie vice president of academic affairs and workforce development at tri-county technical college in south carolina and dr limei tian assistant professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&m this study was funded by the national institute of biomedical imaging and bioengineering the national institute of neurological disorders and stroke and the texas a&m university presidents excellence fund a provisional patent on this technology has been filed in association with the texas a&m engineering experiment station
dr pushkar lele and a team of researchers from texas a&m university conducted a study to see how indole an organic compound and a significant component of the bacterial exometabolome impacts the energy levels and protein function in bacteria indole can promote antibiotic resistance so understanding the metabolites diverse effects on bacterial physiology is critical this study was recently published in pnas nexus microorganisms release metabolites substances capable of breaking down food chemicals or other products these metabolites as a collective make up what is referred to as the exometabolome indole is abundant in the exometabolome and is understood to have significant effects on the functions of bacteria however the mechanisms remain poorly understood in this work the researchers attempted to understand the fundamental principles of indoles action on escherichia coli (e coli) to do this rachit gupta a doctoral student in leles group led a set of experiments to probe the energy levels in bacterial cells in the presence of indole bacterial cells require energy to perform major functions such as cell division or motility which the abundance of indole can alter however measuring energy in single cells is difficult as bacteria are incredibly small we combined several different techniques such as fluorescent dyes that make a cell appear brighter or dimmer dependent on the magnitude of its electric potential which is a major source of its energy said lele associate professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering in particular we focused on cell motility and molecular motor activity which indirectly track the energy levels in this work the researchers attempted to understand the fundamental principles of how indole influences such a wide variety of applications from the function of the chemotaxis (movement due to a chemical response) to protein synthesis the teams single-motor measurements revealed that indole impacted energetics only at high concentrations by dissipating e colis electrochemical proton gradient gupta then performed computational simulations of protein interactions based on statistical mechanics models and compared predictions with experiments comparisons suggested that indole at low concentrations interferes with protein-protein interactions to increase the noise in enzymatic activity and alter function at low concentrations indole affects inter- and intra-protein interactions and at high concentrations it dissipates the membrane potential which potentially explains indoles wide-reaching effects on cell behavior said lele these studies could provide insights into how pathogens invade our bodies for example indole appears to have differential effects on pathogens and beneficial bacteria in the gut which might help pathogens subvert defenses posed by good bacteria in the stomach under certain conditions on the other hand indole appears to promote colonization by beneficial bacteria as per the groups earlier work much work remains to be done to delineate indoles precise effects on bacterial physiology bacteria that lack sufficient energy to perform key functions targeted by antibiotics often survive in those lethal conditions thus the dissipation of energy by indole could underlie the failure of antibiotic treatment in the presence of the metabolite as metabolite production is linked to dietary intake such discoveries could guide personalized treatments based on diet the next thing we want to do is to determine why indole acts differently on pathogens and beneficial bacteria because then we can develop predictive models of the vulnerabilities of bacterial communities in the host said lele besides understanding the role of energy disruptors in modulating the structure of nascent microbial communities will be helpful in engineering communities with desirable properties this study was funded by the national institute of general medical sciences
the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) honored dr yassin hassan with the 2022 fluids engineering award at the fluids engineering division summer meeting (fedsm) in toronto for his outstanding contributions to the engineering profession and the field of fluids engineering hassan is a university distinguished professor regents professor and lf peterson 36 chair ii professor in the department of nuclear engineering and the j mike walker ‘66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he is also director of the center for advanced small modular and microreactors and a member of the national academy of engineering asme presented the award to hassan on aug 4 during the fedsms awards dinner at the intercontinental toronto centre in toronto canada he was also a plenary speaker for the meeting presenting high resolution experiments for modeling and simulation: from nuclear applications to covid-19 this award is a testament to dr hassans vital work in the field of fluids engineering said dr michael nastasi head of the nuclear engineering department we are proud the asme has chosen him for this distinguished recognition this is a well-deserved honor recognizing dr hassans valuable contributions to the fluids engineering field said dr guillermo aguilar head of the mechanical engineering department his work continues to make positive impacts within the engineering community the fluids engineering award was established by the fluids engineering division in 1968 and operated as a division award until 1978 when it was elevated to a society award it provides the recipient with $1 000 and a bronze medal hassan earned his bachelors degree from alexandria university in egypt in 1968 he earned his masters degree and doctoral degree in nuclear engineering from the university of illinois in 1975 and 1980 respectively his research is focused on computational and experimental thermal hydraulics reactor safety fluid mechanics two-phase flow turbulence and laser velocimetry and imaging techniques
dr siegfried hecker and dr farheen naqvi join the faculty in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university effective aug16 where they will contribute their robust knowledge of and experience in nuclear security hecker will serve as a professor of practice and naqvi will serve as a research assistant professor both will work closely with the center for nuclear security science and policy initiatives (nsspi) at texas a&m as nsspi faculty fellows to advance the departments commitment to nuclear safety and nonproliferation hecker brings international nuclear security expertise hecker is an internationally recognized expert in plutonium science global threat reduction and nuclear security he joins the department after a tenure at stanford university where he served as a professor emeritus in the department of management science and engineering and a senior fellow emeritus at the freeman spogli institute for international studies (fsi) he previously served as the fifth director of los alamos national laboratory and co-director of the fsis center for international security and cooperation heckers current research interests include nuclear nonproliferation and arms control nuclear weapons policy nuclear security the safe and secure expansion of nuclear energy and plutonium science he will guest lecture in the department and other areas across campus such as the institute for science technology and public policy at the bush school of government and public service at texas a&m i will focus on the importance of the interplay of technology and policy on all things nuclear from nuclear energy to nuclear weapons hecker said i also plan to work with students and postdoctoral fellows on projects of nuclear technology and their implications for nuclear policy naqvi brings wealth of radiation detection and detector development naqvi joins the department after serving in the massachusetts institute of technologys department of nuclear science and engineering as a research scientist during her term she applied her knowledge of radiation measurement detector development and computational analysis to focus on building technologies to mitigate nuclear terrorism and weapons by mitigating the dangers of nuclear smuggling or nuclear weapons we are making an effort to make the world more secure naqvi said she will teach nuclear security policy courses in collaboration with dr sunil chirayath professor of nuclear engineering and nsspi director i am very interested in and looking forward to teaching nuclear policy courses naqvi said i am also excited to learn from some of the great faculty at this stage in my career with their combined experience naqvi and hecker bring expertise to support the college of engineerings mission to serve texas the nation and global communities by preparing graduates to meet the complex technical challenges of society my overriding career objective has been to make the world a safer and more peaceful place getting nuclear right is crucial to that objective hecker said
a research team led by dr nitesh saxena professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m university received part of a $12 million grant from the national science foundations secure and trustworthy cyberspace program to investigate the robustness and security of election systems that read hand-marked paper ballots saxena is working on the project in conjunction with dr dan wallach professor in the departments of computer science and electrical and computer engineering at rice university and dr chengcui zhang professor in the department of computer science at the university of alabama at birmingham the texas a&m team received nearly $400 000 across the country nonpartisan election officials face a demand to produce the results of local and state elections quickly and accurately and sometimes accuracy can suffer because of this while modern machine-learning and deep-learning techniques have revolutionized how computers see the world even the most sophisticated systems used to scan and process hand-marked ballots primarily look at the average darkness across bubble targets on a sheet as a result traditional paper ballot scanners can miss partially filled-in marks or misclassify stray marks and scanner noise as filled-in bubbles depending on how theyre configured in addition existing systems are not inherently designed to identify potentially fraudulent voting cases where a single voter has filled out multiple ballots the proposed research aims to respond to these issues by building an artificial-intelligence system called bubble aid by training on data from millions of actual ballots the system will use modern computer vision and learning techniques to recognize hand-marked bubble targets more effectively than existing systems our research could lead to significant efficiency and improved security helping election officials focus their attention on the ambiguous ballots that require the most manual attention as opposed to the majority of ballots that were tabulated correctly said saxena we also anticipate that our work on hand-marked ballots could be applied to other hand-marked forms such as the ones used in standardized testing this research is funded through the texas a&m engineering experiment station a state agency that solves problems through applied research and development and collaboration with industry government and academic partners
as society adjusts to become information-focused conventional computing is approaching its fundamental limits the need for computing to become faster and more energy-efficient is exponentially increasing texas a&m university is set to lead its first department of energy (doe) funded energy frontier research center (efrc) the center will focus on reconfigurable electronic materials inspired by nonlinear neuron dynamics (remind) an initiative that strives to transform computing to behave more like a human brain for rapid and efficient processing dr r stanley williams professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering will serve as the director of the efrc and dr sarbajit banerjee professor in the department of materials science and engineering and the department of chemistry will serve as the associate director we are at a crossroads for the future of computing said banerjee self-driving cars networked grids and personalized medicine are on the rise all of which require massive amounts of energy a whole new approach that focuses on brain-like computing is essential to meet the needs of society modern computers excel at various essential functions like high-precision arithmetic and solving known equations however they perform poorly when it comes to natural human abilities such as real-time learning concept identification and decision making this ability to process information is possible because human brains have nerve cells (neurons) that continuously compare incoming stimuli with previously learned data neurons communicate with one another via electrical and chemical signals through connections called synapses that store memories although the individual biological steps are slow compared to those in transistors enormous numbers of them operate simultaneously to perform sophisticated computation with energy-efficient orders of magnitude superior to the most advanced electronic computers lets say we are looking at a picture of a dog said banerjee a human brain can almost immediately recognize the dog itself its type and relative age a computer will struggle with the basic recognition and may make a significant mistake while also using much more energy to do so the researchers involved with the remind initiative are discovering ways to emulate human neurons and synapses in electrical circuits by designing creating and assembling materials that exhibit tunable nonlinear responses to incoming electrical signals such as thresholding amplification integration and embedded memory in other words they are emulating the human brains processing system and attempting to assemble it into a highly efficient and capable computer our center seeks to uncover the foundational science of artificial neurons and synapses said williams we are looking forward to solving a generational challenge that will transform the future of computing if successful in implementing these techniques their findings could significantly reduce the amount of energy consumption used by computers helping combat the energy crisis we are focused on taking computers from calculating mathematical functions to learning and making decisions in uncertain and changing environments said banerjee were discovering the fundamental chemistries and materials for manufacturing the next generation of brain-like computing the doe recently announced the efrc awards to develop technologies that can transform energy production and reduce harmful emissions the research efforts will have 54 universities and 11 national labs in 34 states contributing the efrc is a collaboration among the college of engineering the department of chemistry the texas a&m engineering experiment station the national renewable energy laboratory lawrence berkeley national laboratory and sandia national laboratories in addition to banerjee and williams remind researchers include dr raymundo arroyave dr matt pharr dr xiaofeng qian and dr patrick shamberger from the materials science and engineering department dr perla balbuena from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and dr marcetta darensbourg and dr kim dunbar from the department of chemistry the team represents the breadth and depth of expertise needed to tackle this complex challenge spanning multiple disciplines
"the national science foundation (nsf) announced the addition of five new nsf innovation corps (i-corps™) hubs that will scale the nsf-led national innovation network accelerating the translation of discoveries into new solutions that benefit society texas a&m university and the texas a&m engineering experiment station (tees) will help lead the expansion of this network as part of a new regional collaboration the southwest i-corps hub with a total award of $15 million for the next five years the regional alliance will work collaboratively among eight institutions to provide experiential entrepreneurial training to academic researchers in science and engineering i-corps hubs serve as the operational backbone of the national innovation network a network of universities nsf-funded researchers local and regional entrepreneurial communities and other federal agencies helping researchers translate fundamental research results to the marketplace and generate economic value this award will empower tees and the texas a&m university system as a whole to further establish a foundational program toward building an innovation ecosystem around key technology areas developed by our students researchers and faculty said dr john e hurtado interim dean and vice chancellor for engineering at texas a&m and principal investigator we are proud to implement the i-hub across the a&m system and look forward to playing a leading role in hub management as a founding partner texas a&m engineering and its partners across texas a&m bring significant experience in managing delivering and sustaining deep tech innovation programs efforts include assisting 47 teams in successful national i-corps grant proposal submissions and establishing more than 150 teams through nsf i-site leading to the creation of multiple startups that have raised significant outside capital to advance product development from the laboratory to market being part of the new southwest i-corps hub provides an opportunity to scale these efforts across the texas a&m system for the past 10 years the texas a&m team has successfully identified opportunities to effectively and efficiently commercialize innovative products services and systems at the university level said dr saurabh biswas associate professor of practice in the department of biomedical engineering executive director for commercialization and entrepreneurship at texas a&m lead partner faculty and co-pi with successful nsf i-corps and i-site creation and partnerships for innovation and convergence accelerators initiated we have demonstrated our commitment to engaging in technology transfer and building a deep tech innovation ecosystem as partners of this hub we are positioned to leverage expertise in support of new ventures seeking commercialization to support economic growth tees will manage the day-to-day operations of the texas a&m hub and recruiting and training of teams across the texas a&m system while working closely with fellow hub partners to identify and recruit business mentors to enable a deep bench of student and teaching teams within the southwest region of the us this innovation ecosystem will be implemented around key technology areas developed by students researchers and faculty within the first year at least 250 regional teams in the southwest region will be trained and a minimum of 30 teams will attend the national program the number of teams attending the national training is expected to increase annually as new partners from fellow institutions within the hub as well as the broader southwest region are added ""i am delighted the i-corps hubs that we are awarding today will expand the footprint of the national innovation network harnessing the innovation potential that exists all across the country by establishing clear pathways for researchers to engage with nsfs lab-to-market platform "" said erwin gianchandani nsf assistant director for technology innovation and partnerships ""each regional i-corps hub provides training essential in entrepreneurship and customer discovery leading to new products startups and jobs in this way the i-corps program will open up new economic opportunities throughout the united states"" in addition to hurtado and biswas the texas a&m team comprises dr astrid layton dr cynthia hipwell hub research lead and magdalini lagoudas from texas a&m engineering; blake petty from the mcferrin center for entrepreneurship at mays business school as hub lead instructor and dr sharmila pathikonda from the texas a&m system fellow institutions include the university of texas at austin (hub lead) louisiana state university new mexico state university oklahoma state university rice university the university of texas at el paso and the university of texas at san antonio"
across engineering and scientific disciplines machine learning is the main method for analyzing and identifying patterns in big data and making informed decisions around that data recently a new area within artificial intelligence called scientific machine learning has emerged which introduces physics laws into machine learning models scientific machine learning combines the areas of artificial intelligence and scientific computation because scientific machine learning algorithms are informed and constrained by physics laws they do not rely only on data and can even make predictions where there is no data however there has been little work on probabilistic methods in scientific machine learning meaning that current algorithms cannot model uncertainty in the data or the physics to address this shortcoming dr ulisses braga-neto professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university was awarded a three-year national science foundation (nsf) grant titled a bayesian paradigm for physics-informed machine learning which is part of a joint international program between the national science foundation and the academy of finland braga-neto and his co-investigators dr ming zhong from the illinois institute of technology and a former postdoctoral researcher under braga-neto and dr simo särkkä from aalto university finland will develop a probabilistic framework for scientific machine learning and apply it to various engineering and scientific problems this project is also a collaboration with the texas a&m institute of data science (tamids) through the scientific machine learning lab (sciml lab) of which braga-neto serves as founding director the sciml lab was established in january 2021 with a grant from tamids to support and grow a community of researchers across texas a&m involved in the development and application of scientific machine learning methods the sciml lab served as the pilot lab for the tamids thematic lab program which supports research education and outreach in emerging areas of data science the results of this research will benefit ongoing collaborative projects in petroleum engineering aerospace engineering computational biology materials science and engineering nuclear engineering and astrophysics the research is funded through the texas a&m engineering experiment station a state agency that solves problems through applied research and development and collaboration with industry government and academic partners the funding is provided by nsf as part of an international collaboration with the academy of finland texas a&m research collaborators on this project include dr nick duffield from the department of electrical and computer engineering and tamids dr raymundo arroyave from the department of materials science and engineering; dr james cai from the texas a&m school of veterinary medicine and biomedical sciences; dr eduardo gildin from the harold vance department of petroleum engineering; dr elaine oran from the department of aerospace engineering; dr jean ragusa from the department of nuclear engineering; and dr lifan wang from the department of physics and astronomy other collaborators include levi mcclenny from brown university and a former doctoral student under braga-neto; xia hu from rice university; david jeffery from the university of nevada; and alexei poludnenko from the university of connecticut
three high school students from around the state of texas spent this summer participating in a high-impact research experience at texas a&m university through the us army educational outreach program (aeop) high school apprenticeship program neha adusumilli sabrina hu and richa kalari had the opportunity to work in the nanobio systems laboratory which is directed by dr arum han texas instruments professorship ii in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m being able to meet and interact with many of the phd students around the lab opened up my mind to ideas and concepts that i didn't even think were possible adusumilli said kalari said that the most rewarding aspect of this summer program for her was being able to see her own ideas transformed into physical working devices with real-world applications
the aeop high school apprenticeship program connects high school students to a university or us army research laboratories and centers to spend the summer conducting cutting-edge research in state-of-the-art laboratory facilities as part of this authentic science and engineering research apprenticeship program high school students work one-on-one with a university researcher or us department of defense scientist mentor with this summer program i felt a stronger connection to my love for science adusumilli said i not only gained knowledge about microfluidics but also about the out-of-the-box thinking required for research this summer program inspired me to want to work in lab research in my future career being able to provide hands-on experiences is one of the best ways to get students excited about science and engineering han said these students are the future of our society advancing the forefront of technology it was also very exciting for me to see them experiencing the fascinating world of microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip without the support from the us army these activities would have not been possible and i deeply appreciate their support the aeop program is funded by a grant from the us army research office awarded through the texas a&m engineering experiment station a state agency that solves problems through applied research and development and collaboration with industry government and academic partners
texas a&m university researchers accomplished what was once considered impossible they created a device capable of squeezing the quantum fluctuations of light down to a directed path and used it to enhance contrast imaging this one-of-a-kind flashlight was built to increase the signal-to-noise ratio present in brillouin microscopy spectroscopic measurements that visually record the mechanical properties of structures inside living cells and tissues test results reveal the new source significantly increases image clarity and accuracy this is a new avenue in research said dr vladislav yakovlev university professor in the department of biomedical engineering in the college of engineering we are specially designing light in such a way that it can improve contrast its a new milestone in the capabilities of brillouin microscopy and imaging extensively used for bio systems said dr girish agarwal university distinguished professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering in the college of agriculture and life sciences and it becomes part of an international effort to develop quantum sensors for diverse applications like brain imaging biomolecule structure mapping and exploring underground oil and water sources by devising supersensitive gravimeters a paper detailing the work was published in optica all instruments capable of capturing a picture or image also capture signal distortions or noise in the process the distortions can stem from too much or too little light and even brightness or color issues from the environment around the subject most noise is unnoticed until the image is enlarged enough for the naked eye to see the unwanted pixels clearly brillouin microscopy is the fundamental limit of reduced-scale measurement imaging currently possible the process aims lasers at solid objects and measures the waves or signals of vibration made by the moving atoms and structures within the visibly unmoving material noise produced at this scale can severely obscure the signals received creating muddied images that are hard to interpret currently all laser spectroscopy systems like brillouin microscopy suffer from the natural and technical signal distortions associated with laser light which is why newer light sources are needed six years ago yakovlev attempted to improve the signal-to-noise ratio in brillouin microscopy by using intense light sources unfortunately overexposure to light damaged the cells he was imaging yakovlev searched literature for answers and found a theory from the 1980s that postulated quantum light could solve the problem though it didnt mention how agarwal an expert in quantum physics came up with a possible way dr tian li then a postdoctoral researcher from the university of maryland was hired to create the first quantum light laboratory at texas a&m the laboratory space was provided by dr marlan scully director of the institute for quantum science and engineering the team faced two significant challenges: finding funding for such a wild idea and finding graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to help them ones who were willing to straddle the fields of biology and quantum physics after nearly two years of vigorous explorations the device grew into a tabletop-sized contraption of complex optical configurations and measuring instruments that allowed the researchers to adjust direct and efficiently manipulate and detect light during that time li gained a better understanding of biology and yakovlev and agarwal developed a mechanism to create the proper state and matter of light needed for noise reduction without damaging live cells
though the light-squeezing device can be adopted for other spectroscopic measurements like raman scattering yakovlev and agarwal are enhancing the capabilities of brillouin microscopy to identify the viscous or elastic materials in biological systems these systems control the physical properties of cells and cell structures and define everything from cell development to cancer progression seeing details clearly makes a huge difference in biomedical breakthroughs each time you get a new telescope or something like gravitational-wave astronomy you discover new things you can't possibly see without it said yakovlev the same thing works in biology before the invention of the microscope we didn't know that we consist of individual cells so far only the contrast of spectroscopy images has been improved but yakovlev and agarwal are already working on agarwals theory to enhance spatial resolution or the smallest details possible and if the task leads to creating another complex device that pushes the limits of current technology the researchers are ready and willing to make that happen i love those types of projects where people tell you something will never work and it works said yakovlev i love challenges the project was primarily supported by funding awarded to the texas a&m engineering experiment station from the air force office of scientific research with yakovlev agarwal and scully listed as principal investigators
though the light-squeezing device can be adopted for other spectroscopic measurements like raman scattering yakovlev and agarwal are enhancing the capabilities of brillouin microscopy to identify the viscous or elastic materials in biological systems these systems control the physical properties of cells and cell structures and define everything from cell development to cancer progression seeing details clearly makes a huge difference in biomedical breakthroughs each time you get a new telescope or something like gravitational-wave astronomy you discover new things you can't possibly see without it said yakovlev the same thing works in biology before the invention of the microscope we didn't know that we consist of individual cells so far only the contrast of spectroscopy images has been improved but yakovlev and agarwal are already working on agarwals theory to enhance spatial resolution or the smallest details possible and if the task leads to creating another complex device that pushes the limits of current technology the researchers are ready and willing to make that happen i love those types of projects where people tell you something will never work and it works said yakovlev i love challenges the project was primarily supported by funding awarded to the texas a&m engineering experiment station from the air force office of scientific research with yakovlev agarwal and scully listed as principal investigators
despite advances in medical knowledge and treatments chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease continue to affect certain people in the united states at higher-than-average levels in 2017 the national science foundation (nsf) funded an engineering research center (erc) to address this problem through technology development and outreach four universities partnered on the project and their successes in the last five years have led to a $175 million nsf renewal grant to continue the work the precise advanced technologies and health systems for underserved populations (paths-up) erc is a partnership between texas a&m university the university of california at los angeles rice university and florida international university all four schools work with underserved communities in rural and urban areas of their states with texas a&m as the lead university people hear underserved in the title and automatically think underrepresented said dr gerard coté professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m and head of the paths-up erc a medically underserved person typically lacks good access to health care our underserved also happen to be underrepresented hispanic latinx and african american communities unequal health issue rates over 40% or two-fifths of the american population is obese which leads to heart disease and diabetes among other chronic ailments a close look shows underrepresented populations are at a disadvantage a black child is over 70% more likely to be obese than a white child in normal hispanic communities a childs risk falls to about 60% more than a white child coté said the heart disease and diabetes numbers in underserved and underrepresented communities are higher and usually compounded by low socioeconomic conditions engineering an increased health care reach one paths-up goal is to create innovative robust and affordable technologies engineered to be low-cost accurate and tough enough for use wherever people live for instance the erc is developing a rice-grain-sized device to be injected under the skin that tracks and records blood chemistry levels and changes over time the data is retrieved optically and noninvasively by a watch-like scanner and the injected device remains in place for future scans another device worn on the wrist will monitor pulse body activity and eventually blood pressure without using a cuff the technology will understand the context so a high heart rate during a low movement period would trigger an alert and accurately monitor people of all skin tones and weight ranges a third innovation involves paper embedded with nanoparticles 1 000 times smaller than a human hair that will when combined with a hand-held device analyze and detect specific biomarkers from a drop of blood the ambulance crew for a potential heart attack victim facing a 45-minute ride to the hospital can do an immediate blood test on the patient and do another one 30 minutes later during transport upon arrival the hospital will receive two points of data from the patients history with data points plural we can see trends coté said we can see if the biomarkers for a heart attack are going up or down the current standard of care is to do a blood test when the patient arrives doctors get results back from a lab 30 to 45 minutes later and only have one data point to start from faculty graduate students postdoctoral researchers and undergraduate students are all involved in creating and testing the devices doctors and other medical care providers along with over 20 large and small companies work with paths-up to help get the technology prototyped and taken to the point where the companies can do the final development and manufacturing making medical information part of the culture the second paths-up goal involves recruiting and educating the diverse precollege college and postcollege scientists and engineers needed for developing future technology and improving underserved community health the erc achieves this through communicating with and empowering community leaders students and teachers; health care providers; and university students and faculty communicating with underserved community participants allows paths-up to share medical information in an approachable way empowered teachers create actionable lesson plans on science technology engineering math and health these plans are shared with their students and other schools high school students and teachers interested in engineering and health care are recruited to be a part of the research teams in the four universities where they are mentored by doctoral students doing the research many of these doctoral students join cooperative education programs in the communities and learn more about the people they will care for in the future in turn the center learns whats needed to engineer successful devices from the community whether they speak english or spanish diabetic patients listening to doctors instructions on blood sugar levels might lose track of what to do paths-up engineers work with engineers and behavioral psychologists to develop apps that use visually clear-cut graphics like color-coded ranges and simple if-this-then-that guidelines people can understand future goals currently the universities can only develop technology to a certain point beyond that a company must take over and that transition can be a challenge coté said in the next five years he would like to explore ways to make that path easier by providing more fully developed and tested technologies coté also said that while many of the erc technologies would be useful for other diseases diabetes and cardiovascular diseases are running rampant across the world even in developing countries which calls for more community engagement and communication my biggest joy is working with people from so many different areas of expertise who bring different perspectives to the project coté said it makes rowing the boat in the same direction a challenge but it's also one of the greatest rewards the nsf grant will be administered through the texas a&m engineering experiment station a state agency that solves problems through applied research and development
dr emily pentzer associate professor in the department of materials science and engineering and the department of chemistry at texas a&m university is making 3d-printed polymers more environmentally friendly through a process that allows the polymers to naturally degrade over time pentzers research is a collaborative effort that includes researchers from the texas a&m college of engineering the texas a&m engineering experiment station the texas a&m department of chemistry and the university of kashmirthe research was published in the journal angewandte chemieour goal was to create sustainable degradable polymeric structures pentzer said we did this by leveraging the microstructures afforded by chemistry in conjunction with the macrostructures afforded by 3d printingmost commercial synthetic polymers consist of large molecules that do not break apart under normal conditions when left in the environment manufactured items such as foam cups or plastic containers break down into small pieces that are unseen by the naked eye but the long polymer molecules remain present foreverits not just the plastic bottle being kicked down the road pentzer said these materials break down into microplastics that stay in the environment we dont fully understand the impact of microplastics but theyve been shown to carry diseases heavy metals and fecal bacteriato make the degradable polymers pentzer collaborated with dr don darensbourg distinguished professor in the department of chemistry at texas a&m to use carbon dioxide and table salt to create the ink that was used in the 3d printing process after printing the structures are washed with water to dissolve the salt and solidify the structure while the outside of the structure continues to look smooth the process creates thousands of small pores which allow the chemical compounds to degrade at a quicker rateunder the right conditions the polymers weve created will actually degrade quickly pentzer said ideally theyll break apart into small molecules that are not toxic these smaller molecules wont be able to carry things like heavy metals or bacteriaas the research progresses pentzer hopes to use this process to create packaging materials so that things like boxes and tape can degrade quickly rather than sitting in a landfill for years she also sees a bright future for 3d-printed polymers in the biomedical fieldthese materials can be used for diverse biomedical applications pentzer said things like scaffolds for implants that will degrade over time so your body can heal but you wont have that piece of plastic in you foreverthrough her interdisciplinary research pentzer is seeking to solve a worldwide problem that could have implications on the environment human health biomedicine and almost every aspect of human existenceits kind of like marrying the science with the engineering pentzer said working together we can create synergy and achieve much morethis research was supported by grants from the texas a&m triads for transformation program the welch foundation and the national science foundation
an eight-person team from texas a&m university competed at the 2022 southeastern conference (sec) machining competition in knoxville tennessee the competition is sponsored by the department of defense and the industrial base analysis and sustainment (ibas) in conjunction with projectmfg through the secureamerica institute (sai) which is powered by the texas a&m engineering experiment station the competition allows university teams to display their machining abilities and problem-solving skills learn more about computer numerical control machining and promote state-of-the-art manufacturing education and training the aggie team included six undergraduates from the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution colton lee liam fortier alyssa bryd tobias gualandri david nemec and benjamin smith as well as two other engineering undergraduates nathan panak from the wm michael barnes 64 department of industrial and systems engineering and madeline sellards from the zachry department of civil and environmental engineering the aggies competed against other university teams made up of undergraduates and graduate students from auburn university mississippi state university and the university of tennessee
"""for the 2022 competition the sec logo was split digitally into four quadrants and each team had to machine its section from an aluminum plate "" fortier said ""our objective was to manufacture the upper right quadrant of the sec logo""""the event was both a collaborative effort and a competition between all the sec schools "" lee said ""the major components that judges looked at were speed dimensional accuracy smoothness and surface finish we practiced perfecting similar tasks on the equipment provided to us by sai and we went into the competition prepared and confident thanks to sai's support""headquartered at texas a&m-rellis sai is a private-public research collaboration converging industry government and academia to combine advancements in us manufacturing resilience its members provide world-class leadership through applied research scaled education and workforce deployment economic analysis and policy recommendations and market-driven technology transitionsai seeks to support and develop the united states manufacturing and defense industrial base from regional to national levels and strives to counter global marketplace supply chain disruptions maintain leadership in developing and deploying innovative manufacturing technologies and products and fully employ their people through comprehensive education and training in new and emerging advanced manufacturing technologies and processeson behalf of sai i congratulate the aggie group of students for an outstanding accomplishment said dr dean schneider acting director of sai we are proud to have been a part of their success and we wish the team all the best as it moves forward to the next competition""the aggies had a strong start but quickly realized their machining fixture had been improperly installed after fixing the issue they finished with the competitions best time of 74 minutes and 57 seconds "" said dr darrell wallace the aggie team advisor and professor of practice in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution ""though the tennessee team's time was longer their careful use of fewer tools and their proficiency in achieving excellent surface finish gave them enough of an advantage to claim the inaugural title"""
"these events show the significance and excitement of modern manufacturing and allow professionals from industry and scholars from various universities to mentor and engage with their peers in similar programs the competition sparks new friendships and opportunities and introduces students to the career possibilities in manufacturing""one of the speakers who impacted me was adele ratcliff the director of the ibas "" said byrd ""during the competition ratcliff talked to sellards and me about how happy she was to see us competing in this space as women it made me feel like she saw herself in us women fostering the next generation of women in the industry and that inspired me""""we do some incredible things as engineers however it can sometimes be challenging to connect with other engineers so to come together and do amazing things as a community is great "" lee said ""i am thankful for all the support from dr wallace and justin carter who helped with the logistics of our trip also i am grateful to dr tony schmitz from the university of tennessee knoxville the originator of this competition for helping make this event happen""the competition allowed us to bring people from the industry national research and academia together into one place and learn from each other said panak it was an awesome experience and the team is eager to go back next year and win it"
texas a&m university and south texas college launched the texas a&m engineering academy at south texas college and will enroll the first cohort of students in fall 2023we continue to work with our outstanding community college partners across texas to offer students a unique path to earn an engineering degree said texas a&m university system chancellor john sharp now students in south texas have the opportunity to start their college career closer to home for the first couple of years while being part of one of the best engineering schools in the country in this innovative co-enrollment partnership qualified students will be admitted to the texas a&m college of engineering complete the first two years of math science and core curriculum coursework at south texas college and have the unique opportunity to enroll in engineering courses taught by texas a&m faculty on the south texas college campus after two years students transition to texas a&m to pursue one of 22 majors within the college of engineering and finish their engineering degreesim excited about the creation of our newest engineering academy and the opportunities it provides for students in south texas said dr john e hurtado interim vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m it is always important to offer students an affordable premier education we look forward to welcoming our first cohort to the aggie family this fallstudents will save an estimated $4 600 in tuition and fees each semester they are enrolled in an engineering academy before transitioning to texas a&m to complete their degree the program will accept applications for fall 2023 through june 15south texas college president dr ricardo j solis said this evolving partnership with texas a&m means greater opportunities for students in the rio grande valleywe have great talent in our region; talent that is being recognized state and nationwide solis said our job is to ensure that this talent is fostered and students are given opportunities to excel through partnerships like this one with texas a&m through this initiative qualified valley students accepted into this engineering academy will have the opportunity to gain guaranteed admission into one of the most competitive engineering colleges in the country were excited about this partnership and what it means for our students and our communities current texas a&m industrial and systems engineering student alan cortez a mcallen texas native sees the benefits that the engineering academy program will bring to the rio grande valleythe opportunity to stay home and complete my first two years at an engineering academy would have saved two years worth of rent and other tuition expenses while receiving the same quality education and staying connected with my family cortez said i am so excited for texas a&m and south texas colleges new engineering academy partnership to start and i am confident that many aspiring engineers in the valley will benefit from this opportunity to graduate from texas a&m with an engineering degree at a more affordable costby offering opportunities like the engineering academies texas a&m can better serve texans this innovative co-enrollment partnership was developed to address the states growing need for engineers in texas the projected need for engineers in the workforce is 51 000 by 2028 to meet this need universities and two-year colleges must work together to bridge the gap and attract and retain students who are interested in stem fields visit the engineering academy program for more information about how to apply and additional details

researchers at texas a&m university are working to develop an all-electric propulsion system for single-aisle 150-200 passenger commercial aircraft such as the boeing 737 that will significantly decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emissions affecting the environment through commercial air travel it is estimated that single-aisle aircraft are responsible for nearly half of aviation-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2017 domestic air travel consumed nearly 35 quadrillion british thermal units of jet fuel accounting for about 35% of primary energy consumption and about 26% of greenhouse gas emissions in the united states dr hamid toliyat raytheon professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering received funding to continue with phase two of the $5 million us department of energys advanced research projects agency-energy (arpa-e) aviation-class synergistically cooled electric-motors with integrated drives (ascend) project the program aims to address the greenhouse gas issue by creating innovative lightweight and ultra-efficient electric motors drives and associated thermal management systems (collectively referred to as the all-electric powertrain) by using carbon-neutral liquid fuels such as ethanol or green ammonia an all-electric propulsion system would have net-zero emissions and be much quieter for passengers and those in the vicinity of airports the goal with the completion of the second and final phase of the ascend program is a fully integrated all-electric powertrain system at a power density of 12 kilowatts per kilogram or greater with an efficiency of 93% or greater these targets are beyond the capability of current advanced technologies but toliyat and his team are working to push the boundaries to make this achievement possible
during phase one of the project the design and model were developed during phase two the development and implementation stages will begin during phase one we were able to show that the full power train is manufacturable by using cutting-edge technology including 3d printing and metal additive manufacturing said dorsa talebi a doctoral student working with toliyat the project is funded by arpa-e through the texas a&m engineering experiment station led by toliyat this project includes many collaborators across the college of engineering including nine faculty and their respective graduate and doctoral students from the department of electrical and computer engineering the department of aerospace engineering the department of materials science and engineering and the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering dr matthew gardner assistant professor at the university of texas at dallas and former doctoral student of toliyats is serving as co-principal investigator for this project texas a&m technology commercialization which is an office on campus connecting industry to the texas a&m university system is also involved with the project
an international team of researchers is applying artificial intelligence techniques to design energy-efficient district heat pump systems that better serve human needs and behaviors while reducing the carbon footprint of buildings the $15-million project is funded by the national science foundations (nsf) partnerships for international research and education (pire) program and led by dr zheng oneill of the j mike walker 66 department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university the pire program funds only an estimated 10-15 projects nationwide at a time according to nsf the research is also supported by the texas a&m engineering experiment stations energy systems laboratory of which oneill is an associate director the project focuses on the technology of district heat pump systems which distribute energy to buildings through a system of heat pumps and insulated networked pipes since many people spend most of their time indoors oneill said researchers are implementing climate resilience planning as they address heating and cooling needs in a comfortable and sustainable way one of the most pressing and widely agreed-upon methods of decarbonizing heating and cooling systems is shifting to electric energy sources to replace higher-emission power sources like natural gas researchers are working to build human-interactive artificial intelligence tools to equip building managers and owners with the occupancy and behavior modeling information they need to make timely heating and cooling decisions faster and ideally to incentivize a broader adoption of building decarbonization techniques in an increasingly urbanized world there is a pressing need to address the critical challenges of climate change through the built environment because the building sector accounts for nearly 40% of the primary energy use in the us and associated greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions with about 50% of that energy dedicated to heating cooling ventilation and lighting oneill said carbon emissions reduction through building electrification and decarbonization will help human being fight again climate changes
in addition to using artificial intelligence techniques the project includes pilot sites in denmark sweden and the us the pilot sites were specifically designed through a community-informed approach to ensure resilience efficiency and socially justified operation collaborators on this project include dr jin wen at drexel university drs teresa wu and selcuk candan from arizona state university and dr christina rosan from temple university the international partner institutions include kth royal institute of technology and blekinge institute of technology in sweden and aalborg university in denmark this project will bring an interdisciplinary and international team of engineers data scientists economists social and behavioral scientists to reduce carbon footprint improve climate resilience and energy equity oneill said a climate change-driven and community-engaged approach will be used to guide the integration of research education outreach broadening participation and knowledge transfer which can be used in other applications the us-based researchers will work closely with their european counterparts from sweden and denmark where district heat pumps have been more widely adopted and implemented in comparison to the us to collaborate and facilitate an exchange of data in the hopes of promoting exploring and refining sustainable methodologies of using district heat pump systems to better decarbonize buildings in addition to the research the project will also provide opportunities to provide students with two cross-institutional education programs the summer international graduate bootcamp and exchange program and the smart built environment certification program and train a diverse and convergent workforce well-equipped to address the multifaceted global climate change challenges
"corrosion is a significant issue causing safety issues for critical infrastructure including the oil and gas industry according to nace international the global economic cost of corrosion is estimated to be $25 trillion the devastating impact of corrosion not only affects the environment and economy but also significantly impacts the us military dr arum han from the department of electrical and computer engineering is leading a team of researchers from texas a&m university tufts university and the university of oklahoma on a project focused on combating microbiologically induced corrosion especially corrosion affecting the united states air force fuel tanks the project titled ""microbes achieve resistance to microorganism-influenced rust (μarmor): an integrated platform for defeating corrosion "" recently received an $1161 million grant from the department of defense's defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) corrosion has been a longstanding issue that many have tried to resolve through various mitigation and coating strategies yet it remains unsolved further mitigating microbiologically induced corrosion which is specifically caused by microorganisms in nature is no exception to this microorganisms exist everywhere in soil water air animals plants and even inside of the human body because of this ubiquitous nature along with the fact that so many different microbes exist in these environments microbiologically induced corrosion is exceptionally difficult to prevent the goal of the μarmor project is to reduce the negative effects of this type of corrosion by developing a new anti-corrosion coating material that is a biofilm composed of microorganisms by modifying the natural corrosion-associated microbial biofilms found in corrosion sites such as fuel tanks to be non-corrosive the living microbial coating will have the innate ability to survive in the natural environment while also maintaining resistance to invasion by corrosion-associated microorganisms in this strategy the developed corrosion-resistant biofilm will not be genetically modified but rather will be a modified biofilm composed of existing microorganisms from this environment making this strategy much more acceptable in broad ranges of applications during the first phase of this multidisciplinary project the research team will develop anti-corrosion technology during the second phase they will demonstrate that the technology works in a realistic environment a feat not easily accomplished with an opponent as transformative and adaptive as microorganisms"
"a combination of highly innovative technologies will enable this strategy to begin the researchers will conduct computational modeling of how the corrosion-causing biofilms as well as the developed corrosion-resistant biofilms will behave under a variety of different conditions in parallel a large number of microfluidic testbeds that will provide a realistic simulated environment while allowing the biofilm behaviors to be monitored with high accuracy over time will be developed and utilized to generate the necessary data for the computational models to be highly predictive ""our microfluidic testbeds each of which will include an array of sensors that can monitor both corrosion and microbial behaviors can be utilized to conduct a large number of tests in a short period of time greatly accelerating the development of the anti-corrosion strategy "" said han texas instruments professor the project is funded by darpa through the texas a&m engineering experiment station han has pioneered the area of high-throughput microfluidics for microbiology applications and will use his expertise to combat these corrosion issues along with a large team of collaborators contributing to different aspects of this technology development and demonstration dr arul jayaraman professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and executive associate dean of the texas a&m college of engineering will lead efforts in studying microbial corrosion genomics and metabolomics dr paul de figueiredo professor at the texas a&m school of medicine will lead the efforts in bacteriology han jayaraman and de figueiredo have collaborated closely for many years and conceived this transformative idea together joining the team are dr xiaoning qian electrical and computer engineering professor who will lead efforts for the computational-scale modeling required for this project; dr jason gill associate professor from the texas a&m department of animal science and the center for phage technology (cpt); and dr mei liu program director of the cpt dr kyongbum lee professor of chemical and biological engineering and dean of engineering at tufts university and dr jizhong zhou director of the institute for environmental genomics at the university of oklahoma are also part of the team"
"college station - firefighters take them so do astronauts and construction workers its what draws gamblers to casinos people encounter risks every day and it doesnt matter whether theyre fighting fires or rolling the dice ""risk"" is the theme of a texas a&m program that has brought together texas schoolteachers and the fort worth museum of science and history to assemble a museum exhibit that will teach schoolchildren and museum visitors all about risk texas a&m environmental engineer robin autenrieth said the exhibit which is called ""risk!"" and opens in march in fort worth will explain to people what ""risk"" is and what risks can be found in peoples lives autenrieth and texas a&m agricultural engineer patti haan lead the a&m side of the project ""one of the nice things about the display on risk is that it takes topics like statistics and probability and provides kids with real-life examples that touch them "" she said ""it gives them a context and makes 'risk real for them"" the project is part of the information technology in science (its) - center for teaching and learning which is administered by the texas engineering experiment station and funded by the national science foundation its held several workshops over the summer in which schoolteachers worked with museum officials to decide exhibit topics and how to present the information in a way easily understood by a 7th-grade audience which is the average education level of people visiting museums autenrieth said the teachers had some great ideas because they are in the business of conveying information to people in that age group she said they came up with ideas that museum officials were able to take back and use the teachers also drafted lesson plans based on the exhibit these lesson plans can be used by other schoolteachers to reinforce what their students see while visiting the museum ""bringing in the teachers to help design the displays expanded the impact of the display well beyond the doors of the museum which is what the museum was interested in accomplishing "" autenrieth said ""all of us were able to learn something new from the experience"" charlie walter senior vice president of the fort worth museum of science and history said working with autenrieth and its provided the exhibit with some amazing glimpses into scientific risk assessment work being conducted by texas a&m in azerbaijan ""this work will help us translate the exhibit experience into classrooms across the country as the exhibit tours "" he said ""teachers and parents will be able to visit the exhibit then take home additional resources or download them from our website that will extend the exhibit and provide for a deeper learning experience"" the exhibit will not only be used in fort worth but will also travel to museums in boston; columbus ohio; los angeles; philadelphia penn; st paul minn; and portland ore nr 937 11/27/01"
"corpus christi texas - the traditional notion of college students sitting in a classroom taking notes and listening to a professor give a lecture is gradually going the way of slate tablets the south texas advanced technology education project (state) is changing the traditional notion of community college classes by developing web-based modules or portions of classes enabling students to master specific parts of courses without having to travel to campus instead these modules are designed to fit into students schedules ""were trying to build our curriculum so students can access it on their time instead of ours "" said dr lee sloan the projects principal investigator and dean of occupational education and technology at corpus christis del mar community college ""our program is designed to develop web-based modules within process technology to train people to operate petrochemical facilities"" this $15-million national science foundation (nsf) project which is administered by the texas engineering experiment station (tees) will take portions of a course in petroleum facility operation and adapt them for the web building in computer simulations so people can see what a petrochemical facility looks like even if they are hundreds of miles away from one in the past petrochemical companies trained their own technicians in-house but in the interest of saving time and money they are now asking colleges to offer this training sloan said researchers hope to meet this increasing nationwide need for petrochemical industry technicians by making it easier for people to receive training via the web the turnover among such technicians is expected to exceed 30 percent during the next 10 years the need is so great that other states are coming to texas because the state has already worked with industry to develop a curriculum to train technicians he said in addition to providing training over the web the project also follows the example used by other nsf advanced technological education (ate) programs by infusing material from core curriculum courses -- such as english math or science -- into process safety courses instead of attending classes dedicated exclusively to english or math for example students attend courses in process safety and study english or math as they encounter these areas in their process safety coursework these same concepts -- web-based technician training and content-driven coursework -- can be applied to other degree programs sloan said they can be applied across the spectrum to any technician training programs the state program also will help the petrochemical industry better reflect the changing population of south texas by providing training to previously underrepresented groups he said the south texas advanced technology education project is a partnership of five community colleges -- del mar victoria south texas coastal bend and texas state technical college -- as well as texas a&m university-corpus christi tees and 15 major industry partners 2/12/02 nr 972"
"college station -- dr dan coxs coastal engineering students at texas a&m university get more than theory from him --- they get sand between their toes and with the university about 100 miles from the coast - even further from beaches - that means a road trip but even that fits the course ""a beach is like a highway "" said cox an associate professor in texas a&ms department of civil engineering ""beaches need regular maintenance steady repair so that people can keep using them"" beach use is important in texas state beaches bring in more than $7 billion in annual tourism income but texas has one of the highest rates of beach erosion of any coastal state in the nation the core of coxs coastal engineering course is its design project in 2001 students teamed up to design a system of structures to slow sand loss - estimated at 4 feet per year -- for a beach in corpus christi texas students conduct field and wading surveys collect soil samples and work with the same real-time data and other professional tools as engineering firms hired to deal with erosion problems working out coastal problems is more than just the engineering cox said and thats why he likes to bring real-life elements into his mix of classroom lecture web technology and beach visits ""students learn an awareness of the impact of solving engineering problems "" cox said the students learn about state agencies that govern beaches how fisheries fit in the role of tourists the recreational sporting groups that have concerns and the part played by environmental groups texas a&m senior jacqueline gutierrez said engineers typically think just about physical problems yet faced with a real problem such as the corpus christi beach students learn they have to think about the community as well the fort worth resident said ""this is just a more realistic approach to learning about coastal engineering "" she said for aaron horine getting a first-hand look at the beach and meeting with coastal engineering firms convinced the alvin texas senior he was on the right career track ""you get a real feel for what coastal engineering projects involve "" horine said ""the biggest surprise was all the politics and public relations involved in actually doing a project"" coxs class spent two days in corpus christi researching the beach and meeting members of coastal engineering firms shiner moseley and associates inc and goldston engineering inc ""i want students to come away with a real feel for how their engineering decisions can impact a beach and how many views they have to consider when making those decisions "" cox said 02/13/02 nr 976"
"college station - san antonios brooks air force base pumps $480 million into the local economy each year - money that could be lost if not for a new project that may provide an alternative to permanently closing military bases by helping the us military cut the costs of operating its bases and find new ways to use existing infrastructure the partnership project between the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the city of san antonio and the us air force preserves a vital part of the san antonio economy and lures new businesses into the area as part of the brooks city-base project the air force will turn brooks air force base over to the city this summer the air force will still remain active at the site but the city of san antonio will take over responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the former military base ""the city of san antonio will own the property and the air force will rent it back "" said skip mills director of san antonio operations for tees texas center for applied technology (tcat) ""the air force gets out of the day-to-day property management business so it can do what it does best - support the warfighter"" tcat will assist in attracting new technology-based businesses aid in technology transfer and in developing research activities at the site tcat will also assist the city with program administration activities ""with the air force staying here we can leverage their presence and bring in technology-based businesses "" mills said ""this is a great opportunity for the state and for tees"" the project is receiving a lot of attention in the nations capital mills said the bush administration wants to pursue alternatives to closing military bases the model used for brooks city-base may provide legislators with a workable solution that can be used as other military bases around the country are decommissioned ""im sure some form of what were doing here will be part of any package coming out of congress "" he said ""the brooks city-base concept brings unique opportunities for a city that is willing to work with a military base or facility to reduce costs by privatizing or putting municipal services to work""writer: 3/5/02 nr 983"
"college station - a soldier wounded in combat gets medical help from a doctor in a field hospital miles away a hiker severely injured from a 60 feet fall down a nearly vertical cliff in west texas gets treated by a doctor in lubbock these situations may seem unrealistic but they are possible as a result of dreams disaster relief and emergency medical services (dreams) uses computer and telecommunications technology and research in basic and clinical sciences to improve trauma victims survival particularly in isolated areas and combat zones beyond the physical reach of trauma specialists in well-equipped medical centers the dreams team will attend the american telemedicine association (ata) 7th annual meeting and exposition in los angeles june 2-5 there they will showcase their projects -- the deployable telemedicine system the digital ems ambulance the military hmmwv (high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle) and the physicians workstation -- to the healthcare industry the deployable telemedicine system ems ambulance and hmmwv all stream data into the physicians workstation at a hospital with the same goal to get medical attention to people in remote areas the primary difference is whether its stationary or not the ems ambulance and hmmwv are mobile platforms that move to trauma victims in isolated areas the deployable telemedicine system is a stationary system designed for use in remote rural areas where a hospital is far away ""the primary rationale for these systems is to provide a means to offset the negative impact of time and distance when dealing with serious trauma occurring in rural areas where the appropriate level of medical care is not immediately available "" said dr james wall co-principal investigator of dreams and director of computing and information technology at texas center for applied technology (tcat) ""ata provides dreams researchers with an opportunity to demonstrate to the telemedicine community the level of maturity of the prototype systems being built "" wall said ""i must add that the maturity level is at a point that we are currently working out the specific details both technical and regulatory for our first fielding in liberty county texas later in the year"" physicians and army medics will be attending the meeting to help the dreams team demonstrate their projects dreams is a consortium between the texas engineering experiment station the texas a&m university system and the university of texas health science center at houston for more information on dreams see http://wwwdreams-projectorg as the states engineering research agency and as a member of the texas a&m university system the texas engineering experiment station (tees) provides practical solutions to critical needs from its headquarters in college station and its 15 regional divisions tees identifies and studies areas critical to the states economic development and quality of life researches and promotes new technologies helps communities strengthen science and technology education investigates problems that affect health and the environment and fosters partnerships between academia and industry"
"college station -- an assistant professor in the ergonomics center of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) gordon vos studied pressures on the posterior while people sit in chairs vos 2001 doctoral analysis of buttock/thigh pressure and a dozen top ergonomic chairs also looked at the importance of armrests and posture ""chair construction was the most significant factor in lowering peak pressure armrests and posture didnt make much difference when compared to the chair design "" said vos who noted nearly 75 percent of all work in industrial countries is done while seated vos also found that men experience more pressure on their bottoms when sitting in chairs than females he added that while more research was needed to determine why he thought it was probably due to weight contoured chair pans with 3-d knitted fabric were found to be the best for reducing peak pressures on test subjects vos said he suspects the knitted fabric allows the seats foam padding to cushion better the contour likely distributes weight more evenly the research also found the memory foam chairs didnt perform any better than regular foam in chairs memory foam is a pressure and temperature sensitive material thats supposed to automatically adjust to a persons unique dimensions vos came up with the idea of doing research on sitting in chairs while working on his masters degree at texas a&m university he was writing a paper while seated in an old wooden school chair ""i remember thinking this has got to be one of the most uncomfortable chairs ive ever sat in "" vos said for his study he took 12 top office chairs 12 men and 12 women and set up nearly 300 different configurations with them vos also built a synthetic model to test on the chairs the contoured seat pan finding suggests more research is needed on the depth width and curve of seat pans vos said not surprisingly some of the most expensive chairs were found to be the best in reducing pressure in the end however the top-selling chair did not have the best performance meaning it likely sells because of aesthetic and advertising appeal rather than ergonomic design vos said vos added that other chair construction factors contribute to the overall ergonomic quality of a chair the ability for height and back adjustments are critical while armrests and backrests serve other ergonomic goals he noted noting that not everyone can afford a premier chair vos had some bottom-line advice for chair shoppers ""the big three items in any chair are height adjustment lumbar support and adjustable back rest "" vos said ""plus find one that fits your size and look for a contoured seat if it has 3-d knitted fabric itll be advertised"" the ergonomics center is funded in part by the national science foundation tees is the engineering research agency of texas and member of the texas a&m university system"
college station - with the help of the center of community support the huntsville arts commission is turning a 19th century mansion into an arts center for the community to enjoy huntsville a town of 35 000 people is the home of texas hero sam houston once known as the athens of texas the town has long enjoyed a strong culture with much of the arts stimulus being provided within sam houston state university and augmented by a countywide array of folk artists the huntsville arts commission recently led an effort in their community to transform a 19th century mansion known as the wynne home into a community cultural arts center for the benefit of the residents of huntsville and visitors the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) center for community support (ccs) assisted the huntsville arts commission when they were seeking funds for renovation of the wynne home ccss erin logan and linda pease cultural service coordinator for the city of huntsville prepared a grant proposal for the powell foundation which resulted in a $30 000 grant to help fund the wynne home project huntsville has long been in need of an ongoing program that is focused on bringing families especially youth together for creative and enriching experiences pease said these positive experiences will be possible because of the new wynne home arts center through a broad offering of arts exhibitions arts classes and cultural events one of the primary programs within the center will be a year-round art museum and gallery the wynne home arts center will stimulate an active cultural life a significant factor in attracting new industry to a community she said cultural organizations and civic centers are important to the well-rounded community: this center will help to make huntsville more attractive to prospective residents the center for community support helps nonprofit and public organizations in texas with various aspects of grant proposal preparation writer/contact: erin logan center for community support (979) 458-3239 elogan@ppri-nwtamuedu http://ppritamuedu/ccs/homehtm 7/10/02 nr 1046
"college station - in most classes a grade of c is just making it but to world-renowned computer scientist dr bjarne stroustrup and the rest of the computer science world it is the most widely used language supporting object-oriented programming stroustrup the designer and original implementer of c has accepted the college of engineering chair in computer science in the department of computer science at texas a&m university and will move his research to texas a&m using c as his tool stroustrup pioneered the use of object-oriented and generic programming techniques in application areas where efficiency is a premium stroustrups book the c programming language is the most widely read book of its kind and has been translated into 14 languages a later book the design and evolution of c broke new ground in the description of the way a programming language is shaped by ideas ideals problems and practical constraints ""dr stroustrup will bring great visibility to the department of computer science and to a&m "" said jennifer welch head of the computer science department ""in addition to continuing his research in programming languages and tools and finding new collaborators here he is looking forward to teaching"" stroustrup was named one of ""the 20 most influential people in the computer industry in the last 20 years"" by byte magazine in 1995 he also has been named an at&t bell laboratories fellow and an at&t fellow he received the 1993 association for computing machinery (acm) grace murray hopper award for his early work on c and is an acm fellow nr 1058 7/26/02"
"college station - a new technology developed by texas engineering experiment station (tees) researchers will open access to billions of barrels of oil and natural gas and may alleviate the possibility of future fuel shortages each year more than 15 trillion cubic feet of stranded natural gas is burned vented or re-injected into the ground because petroleum companies have no way of harvesting the remote gas and transporting it to market a project between tees a member of the texas a&m university system and synfuels international inc of dallas has developed into a new gas-to-liquid technology and fully functional pilot plant for converting natural gas into a clean-burning liquid fuel that can be easily transported by pipeline or tanker ""one of the big problems in the oil and gas industry right now is that if you find oil you usually find gas associated with it "" said dr kenneth hall the tees chemical engineer who has led the development of the new technology ""in many regions there is no way to recover this natural gas because of the lack of safe transport or existing pipelines this new process will allow oil companies to utilize the natural gas from remote fields and convert it into transportable liquid"" the liquids produced in the conversion can be used as a beneficial additive in refining operations or more simply refined into jet fuels naptha diesel or gasoline ben r weber jr president of synfuels international said the gas-to-liquid fuel pilot plant his company has built using the technology developed by tees researchers is more environmentally sound and less expensive to construct than existing plant designs because of its size and portability environmental regulations which prevent venting or flaring of the natural gas and associated toxins into the atmosphere pose challenging and expensive roadblocks to oil companies wanting to remove their oil from the ground oil producers must either re-inject the natural gas into the ground concurrently with the oil being produced (a costly and complex procedure) or abandon their reserves petroleum companies can construct the synfuels plants almost anywhere even on or near remote drilling sites as a result oil and natural gas can be drilled where it was previously impractical to produce ""stranded natural gas reserves are stranded for a reason - a market for the natural gas does not exist or there is no infrastructure to get the gas to the market "" weber said ""our plant converts natural gas and gets it to market as a liquid which everyone can use in some capacity"" hall who holds the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering at texas a&m university said the technology will enable us petroleum companies to access numerous domestic resources for fuels and petrochemicals rather than rely so heavily on foreign imports ""basically it means that with this new technology fuel supplies will be utilized at their utmost capacity with much less wasted energy "" hall said contacts: ben r weber jr president synfuels international inc (214) 855-8920 bweber@synfuelscom synfuels international inc - http://wwwsynfuelscom terry young executive director technology licensing office the texas a&m university system (979) 847-8682 t-young@tamuedu technology licensing office - http://tlotamuedu/ 8/6/02 nr 1069"
"college station - dr ls ""skip"" fletcher regents professor and holder of the thomas a dietz memorial professorship in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university will receive the 2002 american society of mechanical engineers (asme) medal the societys highest form of recognition fletcher is also director for aerospace at nasa ames research center in moffett field calif the medal is given annually for ""eminently distinguished engineering achievement"" fletcher the first texas a&m faculty member to win the award will receive his medal at the 2002 asme international mechanical engineering congress in new orleans in november fletcher came to texas a&m in 1980 and has held a variety of positions at the university including associate dean of the dwight look college of engineering and the halliburton professor of mechanical engineering from 1985-88 fletcher also was associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system for more than 10 years beginning in 1988 fletcher was the education coordinator in the tees offshore technology research center before coming to texas a&m fletcher was professor and chairman of the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the university of virginia and previously was professor of aerospace engineering and associate dean at rutgers university a registered professional engineer in arizona new jersey texas virginia england and australia fletcher has written more than 200 journal and conference papers and six books and holds five patents fletcher is a fellow of asme; the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa); the accreditation board for engineering and technology; the american association for the advancement of science (aaas); the american astronautical society (aas); and the american society for engineering education (asee) he has been honored numerous times by asme asee and aiaa fletcher received a bachelors degree from texas a&m a masters degree from stanford university and a phd from arizona state university 8/23/02 nr 1081"
"college station - half a world away in the deserts of the united arab emirates the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and texas a&ms engineering program are providing leadership for the american university of sharjahs (aus) engineering programs the university was established in 1997 by the ruler of sharjah his highness sheikh dr sultan bin mohammed al qassimi who serves as the president of the aus board of directors the emirate of sharjah is located adjacent to dubai in the united arab emirates as part of a $36 million project tees provides the dean and associate dean for the universitys school of engineering the principal investigator of the project is tees scientist ls ""skip"" fletcher who has worked to establish the engineering program since 1997 - before the initial memorandum of agreement was signed the following year in july 2002 an expanded memorandum of agreement was signed between tees texas a&m university and the american university of sharjah which extends the association through august 2004 ""were trying very hard to strengthen the reputation of the institution as being the premier institution of the gulf region and its becoming that "" fletcher said ""we want to be sure they get a comparable education to what we give in the united states the objective is really to establish this as a quality institution"" both texas a&m university and the texas engineering experiment station are recognized in the united arab emirates for their outstanding programs and research in engineering fletcher said aus officials wanted to tap into this expertise in establishing their own engineering program ""we have focused on quality and outstanding laboratory support "" said fletcher who is the regents professor and thomas a dietz professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m ""we have the best labs in the region and thats because of the way we put it together over the next year i think well see additional strides in collaborating with industry"" dr leland blank a texas a&m professor emeritus in industrial engineering and former assistant provost serves as dean of engineering at aus blank and his wife dr sallie sheppard professor emeritus of computer science and former associate provost for undergraduate programs at texas a&m moved to the united arab emirates last year sheppard is the aus associate vice chancellor for academic affairs where she has a leadership role in expanding academic operations more than 700 undergraduate students from more than 20 countries study civil chemical electrical computer and mechanical engineering under blanks guidance aus has initiated graduate programs in mechatronics engineering and engineering systems and management ""significant industry and government outreach and research programs have been initiated "" blank said ""aus is following in the tees and tamu tradition of quality service to citizens"" research programs are active in areas such as water and soil environments energy management building code development for earthquake-prone areas microwave detection of faults and materials systems design for middle east climates blank said he hopes to see more faculty and student exchange programs between texas a&ms engineering program and the american university of sharjah already he said several aus graduates are pursuing masters degrees at texas a&m also dr steven gyeszly tees research associate professor serves as the associate dean of engineering providing leadership in engineering curriculum development laboratory development and student services during the last academic year suzanne gyeszly texas a&m professor and director of the policy sciences and economics library at texas a&m worked in the aus library where she served as a consultant in collections development and planning for the new aus library to be constructed next year blank said aus is an example of how tees and texas a&m are providing leadership in the middle east to establishing quality institutions based on the american model of higher education ""theres a strong american and aggie influence through tees and texas a&m - that is taking part in that area of the middle east and helping shape their educational institutions and research imperatives "" he said contact: dr ls ""skip"" fletcher sfletcher@mengrtamuedu dr leland blank american university of sharjah lblank@ausacae american university of sharjah - http://wwwausacae nr 1085 9/13/02"
"college station - testing products in space for use on earth isnt a dream of future space travel it is a reality at the center for space power (csp) one of two nasa-supported space centers in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the csp is one of only 15 centers nationwide that is funded by nasa to do research and provide a vehicle for companies to develop their commercial products in space among the projects currently being researched at the csp are ones on photovoltaic materials that convert sunlight into electrical power for spacecraft temperature controls for spacecraft and encapsulating drugs in space -- with the products being studied in order to try and re-create the results on earth for future use in space ""the shuttles have historically carried experiments with them that were actually done while in orbit "" said fred best director of the csp and associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university ""now the experiments are being created for the international space station and the shuttles will be mainly transporting them"" a research experiment on heat pipes -- which passively move thermal energy from one location to the other -- previously flew on one of the shuttle missions products from this experiment have been sold to companies who now are using them on telecommunications satellites another space-related research project conducted in zero gravity is one in which gas is separated from liquid by the creation of a spinning vortex inside a stationary cylinder ""the best example of needing to separate liquid from gas is simply human breath "" best said ""you have air and water together and they need to be separated for reprocessing"" as a way to resolve this problem best created the vortex phase separator that will fly as part of an experiment on the space shuttle ""the main advantage of this device is that there are no moving parts and therefore no maintenance is necessary which is very important on space vehicles "" best said industry partners of the commercial space centers develop their product ideas in space to see what works then they study the findings of the research and work toward duplicating them on earth for future use in space best says that there are many non-traditional industry partners working on projects that will benefit from using the space station as a laboratory ""we are at a point in space research that is comparable to when the railroad was just going across the country first connecting the east coast with the west coast "" best said ""there is no limit to where we can go from here"" nr 1084 10/02/02"
"college station - engineers in the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) center for space power are using the final frontier - space - to fight the war against cancer researchers from the center for space power and the center for microencapsulation and drug delivery (cmdd) at texas a&m and nasa johnson space center are working with a microencapsulation electrostatic processing system (meps) in which tiny multilayer capsules resembling liquid-filled balloons are formed to deliver drugs directly to tumors for improved cancer treatments and other medical uses in todays (may 30) launch of nasas space shuttle sts-111 the scientists are sending a self-contained experiment to the international space station in the experiment fluids are loaded into a soft fluid container and then pumped into a reaction chamber where capsules will hopefully form a microscope focuses on the liquid-liquid interface where the capsules form so that the researchers can watch the formation to learn about the fluid dynamics of the process suitable multilayer microcapsules can only be made reliably in space where the lack of gravity allows the capsules to achieve useful size so the texas a&m researchers are working with nasa to study microcapsule formation in space in hopes of eventually making the capsules commercially on earth ""the microgravity and vacuum in space make for perfect lab conditions that cant be replicated here on earth "" said frank little assistant director of the center for space power a division of tees and part of a nasa program for the commercial development of space ""there are some alloys that because of the different properties of the materials involved can only be made in space where those properties are not an issue its the same with microcapsules but if we have the knowledge of how microcapsules form in space we can eventually make them here"" in treating tumors with conventional drugs doctors block the tumors blood supply which in turn causes the tumor to shrink and eventually go away - a process called embolization with chemotherapy a drug is injected into the tumor and followed with an embolizing foam stopping the blood flow so that the chemical stays in the tumor microcapsules accomplish this chemo-embolization process in one step the capsules just larger than blood cells block small capillaries choking off its blood supply so that the drugs diffuse through capillary walls and into the tumor killing the tumor because the treatment is targeted and because the capsules carry about 5 percent of the usual dose of the drug microcapsules avoid most of the unpleasant side effects usually associated with chemotherapy treatments microcapsules form at the interface of two fluids that dont mix together well such as oil and water the liquids slide past each other slowly causing a slight disruption in the fluids as they slide past each other the liquids form droplets composed of a mixture of the two liquids a thin polymer wall forms around the droplet which can be electrostatically coated to modify the capsule surface this is the second mep experiment to be flown in space the first mep experiment went up on sts-95 the headline-making flight with former astronaut and us senator john glenn last week the texas a&m university system board of regents approved the center for microencapsulation and drug delivery (cmdd) a collaborative effort between texas a&m university the texas a&m system health science center the texas agricultural experiment station and tees"
"college station- for one texas a&m university professor beach erosion is a line in the sand dr billy edge head of the dwight look college of engineering coastal and ocean engineering division of the department of civil engineering is assisting jefferson county as officials attempt to reopen an area of highway 87 the road has been closed for 13 years since tropical storm chantal and hurricane jerry hit the coast in 1989 leaving the road eroded and impassable because of the closure the residents currently have only one route out of the area jefferson county residents have said the highway needs to be repaired to increase safety mobility recreational access tourism and business in a texas engineering experiment station (tees) project edge is examining the effects of erosion along the 17-mile stretch of road northeast of highway 124 ""if we can help identify the causes of the erosion and potential solutions it could help preserve the lifeline represented by the roadway "" edge said edge and other scientists used a global positioning system (gps) to survey the ground from the coast to 550 yards offshore to create a three-dimensional survey of the land they used this information to predict erosion and the rise in water level from storm surges during hurricanes and other extreme weather events the researchers determined there is not enough sand on the beach to absorb wave energy and prevent erosion the sand shortage is the result of natural settling of the sediment manmade jetties that disrupt sand transport dams upriver that reduce the supply of sediment to the coast and construction that uses sand to elevate low-lying sites edge and other researchers recommend replacing lost sand along the beach though the method used will depend on cost and availability of replacement sand according to edge without a long-term solution the beach will continue receding into the marsh 400 meters every 100 years edge said he would like to study the area following a significant storm to gather more information the team working with edge included robert g dean from the university of florida; bill curtiss from the usace coastal & hydraulics laboratory in vicksburg miss; karyn erickson from applied technology and management; and gregory stone from louisiana state university nr 1082 9/3/02"
"college station -- a little fatty acid with your french fries how about some soap on your onion rings its not what people usually think about at the drive-through window but the vegetable oil used to cook some of our favorite foods doesnt start out that tasty unless purified vegetable oils contain fatty acids and other impurities that give them an ""off"" flavor and undesirable color to make the oil edible it is refined through a complex process requiring chemical treatment and expensive equipment the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) dr ernesto hernandez and steve rathbone have developed a new simplified method that improves the efficiency and the end product of vegetable oil refining in refining vegetable oils fatty acids are neutralized by adding a chemical that will bind them into a thick substance resembling soap or soapstock that can then be more easily removed current methods use sodium hydroxide and centrifuges - machines that can separate the components of a substance by spinning it at high speeds - to remove the soap but using centrifuges is expensive and less efficient the new process uses sodium silicate instead of sodium hydroxide as the binding agent sodium silicate also acts as an absorbent for the ""soapstock "" allowing it to be removed by filtration a much more efficient and less costly option to centrifugation ""basically it simplifies the process by making it more efficient and by decreasing losses of oil "" said hernandez head of the fats and oils research program at the tees food protein research and development center that adds up to savings in manufacturing and overhead while producing oil that is purer and of higher quality health benefits may also result from the use of sodium silicate because it is less harsh than sodium hydroxide which can damage the oil during processing hernandez is working on further refining the process and exploring additional uses originally developed for processing edible vegetable oils the innovation has been found to have applications for refining a variety of oils from soybean oil to petroleum products hernandez said the new filtration process can replace conventional centrifuge process for new companies ""i see it as having excellent potential for new companies as a standard procedure "" said hernandez the a&m system technology licensing office is currently seeking an industrial partner to facilitate commercial application of this innovation ""we are very excited about the patent "" said hernandez ""a couple of companies have tried the process with good success i think any licensee would have excellent success"" for more information: tees food protein research and development center -- http://wwwtamuedu/food-protein us patent 6 448 423 hernandez et al ""refining of glyceride oils by treatment with silicate solutions and filtration "" was issued to the texas a&m university system on sept 10 2002 by: amy brundeen technology licensing office 10/28/02 nr 1106"
"college station - research being done in texas a&m universitys petroleum engineering department is offering alternatives to the worlds oil and gas industry as it struggles to implement the kyoto agreement and reduce the release of greenhouse gases typically oil deposits are found associated with natural gas to produce the oil companies have to also handle the natural gas in many areas of the world - but not the united states the natural gas is burned off or simply released into the air the kyoto agreement would ban this practice ""regulations are changing in response to the kyoto agreement and even countries that have not signed the agreement are trying to implement its recommendations "" said dr stuart scott associate professor of petroleum engineering ""practices such as flaring and venting of natural gas are starting to disappear"" scott is working on ways to reduce emissions by moving the oil and natural gas mixture - or multiphase flow - from the well through pipelines to facilities where they can be separated refined and metered separating the oil and gas at an off-site facility instead of at the well is cheaper more environmentally friendly and allows companies to drill for oil in areas lacking easy access such as the sea floor of the gulf of mexico he said multiphase pumps provide the boost needed to send the oil and gas down the pipeline to waiting processing facilities - all without the need for storage tanks these facilities may be miles away from the well the pumps are expected to play a key role in subsea/deepwater development by increasing the amount of oil harvested ""these pumps allow you to get the same sort of recoveries as onshore and still push the fluids 10 to 20 miles down the pipeline "" scott said in the past five years more and more oil companies have installed multiphase pumps texas a&m is unique in that it is the only university in the nation to have two of the popular twin-screw multiphase pumps to use for research and for teaching students these pumps were donated by bornemann pumps inc and the flowserve corp abb has donated a variable frequency drive (vfd) that will be used to power and control all the multiphase pumps at texas a&ms riverside test facility ""weve been building this facility as industry has moved out of the large-scale research and testing areas "" scott said this equipment and the experience it provides to students are especially beneficial he said students have the opportunity to do projects using the same equipment used across the oil and gas industry ""our students are doing more realistic experiments and their results are more meaningful to industry "" he said ""a lot of undergraduates are getting to work as roustabouts on this facility so theyre learning what it takes to put a whole project together"" 12/11/02 nr 1119"
"college station - texas a&m university javelin thrower luke marrs sometimes pictures woolly mammoths before he lets fly ""im a big believer in visualization "" marrs said ""i visualize everything why i throw the track surface guys im throwing against the sky so seeing myself throw is a big help"" mental images are key to the complex sport that dates back to the 708 bc olympics now biomechanical expert jerry congleton of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) is using 21st century imaging technology to help athletes like marrs congleton director of the tees ergonomics center uses twin digital video cameras customized software and an onsite high-tech hooded viewing center to capture every nuance of marrs javelin throws the v1 digital coaching system is an integrated computer and video system originally designed to analyze golf swings said congleton co-director of the tees ergonomics center ""being able to give them the visual feedback allows the coach and athlete to be on the same page about what to correct "" congleton said the system has been used for archery shotput discus baseball soccer and football kickers and punters congleton and center personnel are modifying the system for use with other university sports including softball volleyball and basketball he is also a part-time coach with the texas a&m athletics departments strength and conditioning team ""my goal is to eventually use the system in all 17 (university) sports "" congleton said ""the really great thing about the system is the athlete can have a record of when he is doing well and when he isnt and he can compare the two to see what he is doing differently "" congleton said ergonomics center -- http://ergo-centertamuedu"
"dr jo howze professor of electrical engineering at texas a&m university has been named associate dean of engineering for the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m and assistant director of the texas engineering experiment station ""dr howze has extensive leadership and administrative experience making him an ideal individual for this post "" said dr g kemble bennett texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering and tees director ""i am excited about the enthusiasm and dedication he will bring to the position and for the important role he will play as we begin working towards our academic goal of enriching the educational experience of our students"" howze came to texas a&m in 1972 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering he headed the department from 1986 to 1992 and has been coordinator for the departments graduate and undergraduate programs he is holder of a ford motor company professorship and leads the associated ""design across the curriculum"" initiative in the engineering program his research interests are in the areas of automatic controls and energy systems including dynamical systems modeling and engineering systems design and design methodologies applications include hybrid vehicles fuel cell energy systems power electronics semiconductor processing controls and automotive control systems howze is a member of the american society for engineering education the american society of mechanical engineers and sigma xi the national scientific research society and a senior member of the institute for electrical and electronics engineering he is currently program chairman for the international future energy challenge howze holds two bachelors degrees in mechanical engineering and a phd in electrical engineering all from rice university"
"college station -- texas a&m university has had a close and productive relationship with the us space program and nasa for more than 40 years and two experiments involving texas a&m were being conducted on the shuttle columbia in recent days one experiment involved weightlessness and near-zero gravity effects on blood vessels in laboratory rats the research that would have been collected was to have assisted in the development of treatments to improve the circulation problems astronauts endure during long-duration space flights that research was being led by michael delp and his wife judy the co-investigator in the college of education and human developments department of health and kinesiology the second experiment involved a navigation system involving location of stars to determine a space crafts attitude titled starnav i the project was headed by michael jacox deputy director of the commercial space center for engineering a division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) nasa funding this year into various texas a&m research projects totals about $5 million other texas a&m and nasa connections: -- texas a&m was one of the first universities in the nation to earn the coveted ""space grant"" designation in 1989 the university of texas and the university of houston have similar designations -- all of the original nasa astronauts traveled to texas a&m in the early 1960s for computer training -- the teague research center was built with nasa funds in 1967 for engineering and space research -- the universitys low-speed wind tunnel now named after the late oran w nicks played an important role in testing space shuttle models nicks who had a 20-year career with nasa and played a key role in nasas involvement with texas a&m died in a 1998 glider accident -- gerald griffin a 1956 texas a&m graduate served as a nasa mission control director for many years and awakened space shuttle crews by playing the aggie war hymn over their radios -- numerous texas aggies have served as nasa flight directors and managers among them john curry (class of 87); bryan lunney (89); bryan austin (81); steve stich (87); john shannon (87); matt abbott (85); rich jackson (80); lee briscoe (68); and paul hill (84); dana weigel (93); cori kerr (90); steve walker (87); and sotirios liolios (94) -- aaron cohen professor emeritus of engineering served as johnson space center director from 1986-93 -- texas a&m is part of the 12-member national space biomedical research institute an agency funded by nasa to study health problems that could arise during and after space flight -- texas a&m is home to two space centers: the center for space power and the commercial space center for engineering both help to merge technology and science to develop new products -- texas a&m is also home to the new texas institute for intelligent bio-nano materials and structures for aerospace vehicles (tiims) a $15-million nasa center comprising six universities: texas a&m the university of houston rice prairie view a&m texas southern and the university of texas-arlington the institute focuses on developing the next generation of bio-nano materials and structures for aerospace vehicles -- much of the research associated with the lunar landing module during the apollo moon missions was conducted at texas a&m -- dick scobee commander of the challenger shuttle was a member of the texas a&m college of education development council from 1983 until his death in the challenger explosion in 1986 a college of education medallion was flown aboard the challenger mission 41-c from april 6-13 in 1984 upon his return to earth scobee presented the medallion and two shuttle patches to the college in october of 1986 the francis r ""dick"" scobee memorial scholarship was funded in his name to be awarded to students seeking certification as secondary math or physical science teachers or majoring in interdisciplinary studies with a math or science specialization scobees widow june scobee-rodgers was named one of 30 college of education notable graduates in 1999 and was the keynote speaker for the colleges 30th anniversary celebration that year keith randall 2/03/03 university relations 979-845-4644"
"college station - the texas a&m university system board of regents established a new institute thursday (march 26) to help boost the number of students pursuing careers in the space industry officials of the space engineering institute (sei) which will be part of the texas engineering experiment station hope to get students excited about working in space systems engineering by involving them directly in doing what individuals working in the field actually do the institute will give students on-the-job training in the design testing and construction of spacecraft systems dr david boyle who will head the institute said studies have shown the united states is falling behind in motivating its best and brightest students to enter engineering and related fields ""we went to the moon because kids came out of high school wanting careers in science and engineering "" he said ""now 40 years later people are coming out of college and showing little interest in spacecraft engineering fields wed like to get the best and brightest students choosing to go into engineering and especially into space systems engineering"" in texas the problem also extends to students from underrepresented groups as smaller proportions of them choose to study engineering for example boyle said texas has a huge pool of untapped talent in the hispanic community hispanics and others from underrepresented groups tend to not see themselves in an engineering field especially space systems engineering ""if we could get the fraction of minority students going into space systems engineering up to the same level as that of non-minorities then wed be taking a huge step towards solving the national problem "" he said starting their freshman year sei students will learn hands-on technician skills required by industry and government for fabricating space hardware as they become juniors and seniors and have taken more advanced engineering classes they will move into putting these analytical skills to work using the same spacecraft design computer codes as boeing and nasa sei students will be required to work 10 to 20 hours a week at the institute where they will be assigned to teams working on space hardware projects for nasa and the space industry ""they become members of the team here "" boyle said students will also take part in outreach activities designed to get more high school students interested in studying math and science sei is a collaboration between the texas engineering experiment station and texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering and is supported by nasa"
piscataway nj -- the ieee has named mehrdad (mark) ehsani professor of electrical engineering at texas a&m university in college station as recipient of the 2003 ieee undergraduate teaching award sponsored by the ieee foundation the ieee undergraduate teaching award recognizes inspirational teaching of undergraduate students in the fields of interest of ieee this years award recognizes ehsani for his contributions to advanced curriculum development and his teaching of power electronics and drives and will be presented in october at the 2003 ieee industry applications society annual meeting in salt lake city utah ehsani established one of the countrys first motor drive and power electronics programs at texas a&m in the early 1980s creating his own teaching materials he built a program that has hosted roughly 1 200 undergraduates many of whom have successful careers in the field ehsani also has directed the texas applied power electronics center and currently directs the advanced vehicle systems research program a fellow of the ieee ehsani has served on many of its committees including chair of education for the ieee power electronics society his honors also include a halliburton professorship dresser industries professorship and ruth and william neely/dow chemical fellowship at texas a&m a registered professional engineer in texas ehsani earned his bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering from the university of texas at austin he earned his doctorate in electrical engineering from the university of wisconsin-madison the ieee (institute of electrical and electronics engineers) is the worlds largest technical professional society with more than 380 000 members in approximately 150 countries through its members the ieee is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace computers and telecommunications to biomedicine electric power and consumer electronics additional information is available at http://wwwieeeorg contact: mark ehsani 979-845-7582 ehsani@eetamuedu
"college station - that pc sitting on the desk at home will one day improve access to health care and reduce doctors office visits by making an individuals medical history available 24 hours a day seven days a week say computer science researchers at texas a&m university their project in telemedicine - providing health care over distance through telecommunications technology - uses pcs to connect medical instruments image software portable ultrasound and other equipment into a streamlined medical information system steve liu associate professor of computer science at texas a&m said the goal is to make medical records available any time any place to health care workers and patients liu heads the computer science departments research group for real-time distributed systems such systems allow information to be shared among many computers at the same time for nearly instant answers ""lets say youre injured away from home you could have a watch device with your medical information "" liu said ""an out-of-town doctor could hook up the watch face to a computer and access your medical data from your primary providers database so you could get proper timely treatment"" although that scenario is years into the future liu and his research group are taking steps toward making it reality in a demonstration project with san antonios brooke army medical center administered through the texas engineering experiment station theyre developing software to analyze weakened blood vessels in the retina caused by diabetes damage may already exist before patients notice a change in vision examining the retina to find damage is labor-intensive and error-prone liu said ""were aiming to improve the identification of problem areas "" he said ""the software can help pick out the danger signs and store them in a database for future reference the next time the patient has an appointment the doctor can take another look at the problem areas to see if theyve changed"" liu said information from different patients also could be cross-referenced to help others ""the difficulty now is that information is scattered in separate medical facilities "" he said ""its time-consuming when a doctor needs to ask for your records from someone else when we travel or relocate we can lose track of health data crucial to future care and in emergencies"" under a streamlined system liu said information could be shared with other doctors to help more patients privacy and legal issues however would need to be worked out first ""the challenge is to create an information network where patient records can be shared securely "" he said ultimately having such a system will help patients take a bigger role in monitoring their health and reduce unnecessary doctor visits - something that will become more important as baby boomers age and health care costs continue to rise he said ""its also something that can help people in rural areas here and in other countries "" liu added ""we have a chance to do things we know will enrich others lives using technology to help solve social problems its a rewarding experience"""
"college station - as the war continues in iraq helicopter and fighter pilots face dangers of experiencing disorientation during landings in areas prone to sandstorms dr charles lessard associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has studied pilots and the spatial disorientation they might experience operating in environments with poor visibility the air force defines spatial disorientation as an incorrect perception of ones position and motion relative to the earths surface in iraq where the terrain is mostly sand pilots are likely to experience a brownout a lack of distinct horizon due to blowing sand or dust when the sand blows across the terrain the illusion of the horizon is tilted and the pilot if not watching his instruments may react by lining his planes wings with the false horizon this can result in hard landings or a crash because the plane isnt flying level as it approaches the landing strip ""helicopter pilots suffer most from brownouts because they fly at very low altitudes "" lessard said in the landing phase helicopters cause sand to blow upward and in a circular pattern which not only obscures the ground but can lead to vection vection is the perception of moving (forward up-down or in rotation) when in fact the helicopter is hovering but not moving ""most of us experience the illusion of vection when stopped at a light and the car beside us moves "" lessard said ""the peripheral vision causes us to perceive that it is our car that is moving so we step harder on the brake peddle"" lessard studied experienced instructor fighter pilots and the various types of spatial disorientation they experienced during flight and in flight simulators pilots can overcome disorientation by relying on their cockpit instruments however in worst-case scenarios the reaction time may not allow enough time for the pilot to overcome the illusion"
"the technology licensing office of the texas a&m university system hosted ""a celebration of innovation in the research valley"" may 14 the celebration commemorated the 2000th invention disclosure filed by a&m system faculty and researchers the event celebrated the innovative spirit of a&m system researchers and showcased how technology transfer contributes to the economic development of the community chancellor howard d graves gave the keynote address for the celebration that honored ten inventors with ""spirit of innovation"" awards for their contributions to the a&m system and to society professor of electrical engineering mark ehsani and sebastien gay received a spirit of innovation award for the ""2000th disclosure"" their invention related to new design features for hybrid vehicles they developed at the texas engineering experiment station (tees) was the 2000th invention disclosure submitted to the technology licensing office by a&m system researchers since the formation of the tlo in 1992 dr mark t holtzapple professor of chemical engineering texas a&m university and researcher with tees received the spirit of innovation award for ""ingenuity"" dr holtzapple has submitted more than 80 invention disclosures many more than any other faculty member his disclosures have resulted in four license agreements with two start-up companies his inventions include biomass conversion processes and the starrotor engine dr leonard m pike professor of department of horticultural sciences at texas a&m university and director of the vegetable and fruit improvement center texas agricultural experiment station (taes) received the spirit of innovation award for ""economic impact"" the ""texas 1015 onion "" other onion varieties carrots (including the betasweet maroon carrot) and many other improved vegetable varieties have been licensed to growers and seed companies across the state and the world the improved varieties have resulted in economic impact of millions of dollars for the texas agricultural industry especially in the rio grande valley dr gyula vigh professor of chemistry texas a&m university received the spirit of innovation award for ""corporate partnership"" dr vigh showed licensee gradipore ltd an alternative way of doing isolectric focusing separations that would work for proteins and pharmaceutical chiral molecules gradipore has since endowed the gradipore chair in separation in which dr vigh currently sits joined the chemistry departments industry-university cooperative chemistry program (iuccp) and sponsored research in dr vighs laboratory dr stephen safe distinguished professor of veterinary physiology and pharmacology college of veterinary medicine texas a&m university and director for the center for environmental and genetic medicine at the institute of biosciences and technology at the texas a&m university system health science center received the spirit of innovation award for ""research support"" the results of safes research in antitumorigenic agents and endocrine therapy for breast cancer have been licensed to avax technologies his research has generated more than 7 million dollars of sponsored research since 1999 for the development of compounds for potential application in the treatment of cancer dr max d summers taes distinguished professor of entomology and associate vice president for research for texas a&m university received the spirit of innovation award for ""global outreach and institutional reputation"" for his development of the baculovirus expression vector system (bevs) bevs is the subject of more than 80 non-exclusive license agreements in 11 countries the platform technology for drug development is cited in more than 100 publications a year enhancing the institutional reputation of texas a&m university around the world dr roger bligh associate research engineer and manager of the roadside safety program at texas transportation institute (tti); dr carl eugene ""gene"" buth head of ttis safety and structural systems division; and dr hayes ross research engineer for the roadside safety program at texas transportation institute (tti) and professor emeritus of civil engineering received the spirit of innovation award for ""public benefit"" for their development of highway guardrail end treatments et-2000 and srt with more than 150 000 installations these devices have saved hundreds of lives and have reduced medical expenses by millions of dollars for those individuals who accidentally hit the end of guardrail on roadways the tlo which serves the entire a&m system seeks to commercialize innovations developed by a&m system faculty and researchers for public benefit and economic development"
"college station - texas a&m university electrical engineering professor b don russell has been elected vice president of the united states national committee of cigre an international organization of 80 countries dealing with large high-voltage electric power systems russell who holds the jw runyon jr professorship in engineering becomes the first person from texas a&m to serve in the organizations leadership cigre (conseil internationale des grandes reseaux electriques a haute tension) brings together thousands of researchers and industry technical leaders from almost every country in the world to promote research and technology in high-voltage electric power systems besides serving as vice president of the united states branch of the organization russell also will serve as chairman of the branchs technical committee in this role he will supervise the selection of the research and technical topics presented at the organizations biannual symposium in paris ""its extremely important that engineers collaborate so that the best practices in electric power are shared by the international engineering and research community "" he said ""this organization is the foremost organization for international interaction in electric power systems it is a distinct honor to be asked to be an officer"" cigre or the international council on large high voltage electric systems has been a major force in the improvement of electric power infrastructure in developing countries and has helped develop international standards and practices for the industry worldwide russell said russell is a member of the national academy of engineering and past president of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers power engineering society"
"college station - the reta and bill haynes 46 coastal engineering laboratory will be formally dedicated wednesday (june 4) in the texas a&m university research park the $538 million 25 000-square-foot facility brings both ocean and estuarine environments into a laboratory setting where educators and researchers can tackle the most challenging problems of near-shore and estuarine regions the laboratory is named for donors bill and reta haynes of marinwood calif he is a retired chairman of chevron and a member of the texas a&m class of 1946 other founding contributors are red and yvonne adams of morgan city la ray and dorothy galvin of houston the herman f heep and minnie bell heep texas a&m university foundation the national science foundation the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and the zachry foundation ""this facility is a premier resource for solving challenges that affect our natural resources and certainly our state and national economy we thank these contributors for their support and for the future benefit that will result from research conducted here "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering and tees director two major components of the laboratory are a shallow-water wave and current basin (120 feet long 75 feet wide 4 feet deep) and a tow/dredge tank (150 feet long 12 feet wide 10 feet deep) with a large sediment pit and current an observation well provides underwater viewing for both harold j (bill) haynes and his wife reta have a longstanding record of generous support for texas a&m university their previous gifts have included two presidents endowed scholarships and two faculty chairs in the college of geosciences born in fort worth haynes entered the us navy in 1944 a year later he married his hometown sweetheart who was a student at texas christian university after world war ii the couple moved to college station where he graduated with a degree in civil engineering haynes credits much of his success to his wife a great partner in life who has been a homemaker mother of their three daughters and grandmother of their six grandchildren haynes enjoyed a distinguished career in industry beginning as an engineer with standard oil company of california (now chevrontexaco corporation) and rising to become president then chairman of the board and chief executive officer of what is now the second largest oil company in the united states retiring from chevron in 1981 he served as a consultant to the executive management of the bechtel group of companies he is a former director of citicorp-citibank hewlett packard the boeing company the rand corporation weyerhaeuser paccar inc and the saudi arabian company (saudi aramco) in 1972 haynes was named a distinguished alumnus of texas a&m in 1978 he received the universitys first geosciences and earth resources medal for distinguished achievement in 2000 he was honored as a distinguished graduate of the department of civil engineering b a ""red"" adams is chairman of the board of oil and gas rental services which he co-founded in 1967 the company is a leading supplier for the rental of drilling equipment in the gulf of mexico for major oil companies and independent operators raymond e galvin texas a&m class of 1953 is a retired president of chevron usa production and a past member of the chevron board of directors a longtime supporter of texas a&m he is a co-chair of the engineering colleges fundraising effort in texas a&ms one spirit one vision campaign the herman f heep and minnie belle heep texas a&m university foundation was chartered in 1986 to provide financial support to texas a&m and its agriculture and engineering programs the national science foundation is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering reaching all 50 states through grants to nearly 2 000 universities and institutions the texas engineering experiment station (tees) is a partnership of communities industry and institutions that work together to solve problems and promote economic development across texas tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system the zachry foundation is affiliated with the zachry group inc a collection of companies that started with the hb zachry company founded in 1924 by hb ""pat"" zachry texas a&m class of 1922 the zachry family has a long and distinguished record of support and service to the university"
"college station -- dr stuart scott associate professor of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university was awarded the asme international henry r worthington medal at the asme (the american society of mechanical engineers) petroleum division annual industry leadership luncheon earlier this month in houston the medal was given to scott for ""eminent achievement in the evolving field of multiphase pumping including his contributions to education technology transfer and the development of the flagship usa research program on multiphase pumping"" scotts research interests include multiphase production systems multiphase equipment well performance well completions and reservoir engineering he also oversees the multiphase field laboratory (riverside campus) the tommie e lohman fluid measurement laboratory the chevrontexaco drilling fluids laboratory and a production lab he holds a bachelors degree in petroleum engineering a masters in computer science and a doctorate in petroleum engineering - all from the university of tulsa"
"college station - the recent donation of equipment by moyno inc will give researchers at texas a&ms multiphase field lab new capabilities to perform studies in oil and gas production moyno which is part of robbins & myers inc has donated a mobile test rig and tri-phaze multiphase pump the mobile test rig consists of two metal buildings two pumps and a high-pressure separator the equipment is designed to be used for single-well applications which account for the majority of onshore texas production the test rig provides the unique capability of moving from the field laboratory to a texas producing well to determine the effectiveness of multiphase pumping the tri-phaze multiphase pump is a single-screw ""progressing cavity pump"" (pcp) and is used to reduce pressure at the wellhead thereby increasing production rates and improving recovery of oil multiphase pumps also minimize the environmental impact of a well site by reducing the amount of equipment needed to get the oil out of the ground recently multiphase pumps have been found to be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by eliminating flaring or venting of gas at well sites ""this donation by robbins & myers joins two other multiphase pumps already installed at this facility and gives a new direction for our student research "" said dr stuart scott associate professor of petroleum engineering at texas a&m ""it puts us one step closer to representing all multiphase pump technologies in one facility no other university in the country has this capability which is essential to doing in-depth modeling of oil and production systems he said ""robbins & myers has been a sponsor of our annual multiphase pump user roundtable (mpur) since 2000 and this donation signals an important commitment toward for future collaboration and research "" he said"
"college station - nanotechnology is making a transition from the laboratory to the classroom at texas a&m university this fall texas a&m is one of the first schools being funded for the nanotechnology undergraduate education project (nue) with a $100 000 grant from the national science foundation the grant is being administered by the texas engineering experiment station (tees) jeffrey froyd director of academic development and head of the foundation coalition at texas a&m said nanotechnology allows engineers to manipulate materials at a very small scale using nanotechnology engineers have been able to make windows that clean themselves and smart splints that can tell cells to heal broken bones the project involves incorporating nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing components into freshman and sophomore classes and giving students an idea of the potential growth of these areas in the future a module focusing on issues related to nanomanufacturing - the synthesis of nanostructures into macro-scale materials - will be integrated into a junior-level class an entirely new senior-level course with extensive lab components will be introduced in the following semester one benefit of teaching students about nanotechnology so early in their college careers is that it will make the students more prepared for future engineering trends in industry ""we have learned from earlier technological developments that were delayed in undergraduate implementation that concepts like nanotechnology need to be introduced as soon as possible "" froyd said ""this ensures that graduates will leave prepared to grapple with issues they will face in the workforce"" froyd said that the nanotechnology lessons will give students a new perspective on engineering as a whole ""engineering is very creative but a lot of what students see in the first two years is very analytical and broken down "" froyd said ""the case study modules will help them see the larger impacts and get a clear picture of the creative side of engineering"" froyd whose background is in electrical engineering will serve as the projects principal investigator co-principal investigators all at texas a&m are winfrid teizer assistant professor of physics; ibrahim karaman assistant professor of mechanical engineering; and terry creasy assistant professor of mechanical engineering ""the team is interdisciplinary because the amount and breadth of information being discovered requires that innovations cross boundary lines "" froyd said ""you need people in all areas to cooperate and interdisciplinary teams allow that"" other universities that the national science foundation funded to work on nue projects include columbia university pennsylvania state university and purdue university"
"college station -- marilyn martell has been named assistant vice chancellor for public affairs in the engineering program of the texas a&m university system and assistant director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) as the assistant vice chancellor for public affairs martell will be responsible for strategic planning and coordination of communications and public affairs initiatives martell was previously director of public information for the texas engineering extension service (teex) where she was responsible for the dissemination of information to the public and news media and coordinated internal and external communications and public relations she also has been a columnist for the bryan-college station eagle for 10 years she was producer and host of ""homefront news "" where she developed produced reported and presented on-air a feature television news program that aired 22 times a day seven days a week on cnn headline news in the college station cable market martell has also served as the morning show host and public affairs manager for kagg/aggie 96 fm radio in bryan texas and as the news director of kwht-fm/ktix-am in pendleton oregon among martells numerous honors are two bronze telly awards in the non-broadcast film/video (cable television) category and the ""top media award state of texas: news producer "" from the central texas council of child protection boards for 1994-95 she has been named a leading lady of the brazos valley by the bryan broadcasting group and in 1997 twin city mission and phoebes home named her reporter of the year for domestic violence issues martell earned her bachelors degree in public relations from gonzaga university in 1990"
"a new imaging technology could one day provide a valuable alternative to mammography and even eventually replace it for diagnosis of breast cancer the technique called real-time scanning thermoacoustic tomography was developed in the laboratory of dr lihong wang researcher with the texas engineering experiment station although breast cancer remains a leading cause of cancer deaths among women the cure rate is greatly improved by early detection mammography has long been the best tool available for early detection but is mammography the most accurate way to detect tumors what if tumors could be detected sooner could more tumors be detected without ionizing radiation could unnecessary biopsies and lumpectomies be prevented by using better imaging technology wang professor of biomedical engineering and electrical engineering at texas a&m university is exploring the answers to these questions at his optical imaging laboratory the lab is developing non-ionizing radio-frequency imaging for the early detection of various cancers ""the efficacy of mammography is not ideal sometimes you miss an early tumor and roughly three-quarters of needle biopsies are benign "" said wang the danger of ionizing radiation from mammograms is a matter of relative risk says wang one in 2 000 patients per exam actually gets breast cancer from mammography ""you dont want to be that 1 in 2 000 "" said wang radio frequency imaging is potentially more sensitive and specific in cancer detection than other medical diagnostics such as mammography and magnetic resonance imaging (mri) both mri and mammography provide high-resolution imaging but they do not provide the high contrast needed to distinguish between cancerous and normal tissue wangs method uses radio frequency and ultrasound technology in combination as an imaging tool that has a much greater contrast than mammography it offers high resolution of objects as small as 05 millimeters and the increased contrast results in greater sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis-cancerous tumors can be detected and distinguished from benign the technique uses radio frequency to illuminate the tissue being imaged high-resolution ultrasound is then used to detect acoustic waves that radiate when the radio frequency is absorbed by the tissue cancerous breast tissue has been found to absorb two to five times more of the radio frequency waves than surrounding normal breast tissue the difference in absorption rates results in a high level of contrast in the resulting image the effect is attributed to bound water and sodium within malignant cells similarly dense tumors can be distinguished from fluid-filled cysts ""i hope there will be enough radio-frequency contrast between normal tissue cancerous tumors and benign tumors that x-ray mammography would not be needed "" explained wang and what about all those needle biopsies on benign tumors wang says that while the effectiveness of the technology will still have to be proven he has hopes that cancers will be able to be detected with high specificity without biopsies ""it would be ideal if a needle biopsy wasnt needed "" said wang wang has been working with md anderson cancer center to develop the technique wang is currently imaging mastectomy specimens supplied by md anderson as an intermediary step to clinical trials so far the tests are going very well wang expects to complete the tests on the mastectomy samples by the end of the summer at which point the researchers will be seeking grants to begin clinical studies at md anderson wang said his hope is to replace mammography but he doubts that will happen right away ""doctors are comfortable with mammography "" said wang ""but if we prove that this technique is more effective they will accept it"" wang also suggests that the diagnostic equipment could be bundled into a conventional ultrasound machine making it more practical for clinics and hospitals to buy this technology is protected under us patent no 6 567 688 issued may 20 2003 the a&m system technology licensing office is currently seeking one or more industrial partners to facilitate commercialization of the new method for more information about licensing this technology please contact page heller at p-heller@tamuedu or 979-847-8682 please reference tamus project #1504"
"college station - in light of yesterdays blackout in the northeastern united states and canada texas a&m universitys national expert on electric power systems said that the electric power infrastructure in the united states could be vulnerable to terrorist attacks due to the millions of miles of transmission lines and remote power facilities across the country ""there is no reason to suspect that terrorism was involved instead of some equipment failure or natural occurrence "" said dr b don russell regents professor in the department of electrical engineering at texas a&m ""but our power infrastructure is very vulnerable we have millions of miles of transmission lines and remote power facilities that are impossible to fully protect and guard"" russell who also holds the jw runyon jr professorship ii in engineering and is a member of the national academy of engineering suggested that instead of trying to protect power facilities officials should focus on being able to quickly restore power to areas affected by a major outage and its impossible to prevent every multi-state blackout from occurring particularly because many blackouts are caused by natural events such as storms or lightning ""since the northeast blackout of 1965 our emphasis has been on limiting the scale of any blackout so that a disruption did not cascade and engage surrounding utility regions "" russell said ""obviously yesterdays disruption was far greater than anyone anticipated over 50 million people in many states were involved along with canada"" russell said that it could be days or weeks before the exact cause of the outage is known once the cause has been determined any necessary immediate changes will be made but researchers will study this blackout for several years ""the investigation will not only include the exact causes but also how to limit the scale of the disruption and how to prevent major cascading of the failure in future outages "" russell said russell also warned that the united states electric utility infrastructure is aging and overstressed with too few power plants being built in the last few decades ""we need major investment in the electric power system if it is to remain the best electric power system in the world ""if any good can be found in this "" russell said ""it is probably in the wakeup call that we must take our electric power systems more seriously and make major investments in our power infrastructure to ensure that outages are infrequent and limited and that when a disruption occurs power can be returned as quickly as possible"""
college station -- the engineering program of the texas a&m university system has named dr theresa a maldonado associate dean of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) from 1981 to 1986 maldonado was a member of the technical staff at at&t bell laboratories working in fiber optic systems fiber components and cable design after completing her doctoral studies in 1990 she joined the university texas at arlington as an assistant professor in the department of electrical engineering in 1999-2001 she was a program director at the national science foundation where she managed engineering research centers and served on a number of nsf-wide committees including career and nanoscale science and engineering she returned to uta in 2001 as associate dean of engineering for research and graduate studies in july 2002 she was appointed associate vice president for research and became director of the uta institute for nanoscale science and engineering research and teaching maldonado was a 1991-96 nsf presidential young investigator and received the halliburton award for teaching excellence and the halliburton award for outstanding young faculty awards from the uta college of engineering in 1995 she was inducted into the inaugural council of outstanding young engineering alumni at georgia tech at nsf maldonado was recognized with the 2001 directors award for program management excellence and the directors award for collaborative integration for her services on the career coordinating committee and with a certificate of appreciation for distinguished service in the development of the nsf program advance a registered professional engineer in texas maldonado is a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and a member of the optical society of america the international society for optical engineering eta kappa nu tau beta pi sigma xi and the society of hispanic professional engineers she holds bachelors masters and phd degrees in electrical engineering from the georgia institute of technology
college station -- dr david c hyland has been named associate vice chancellor for engineering for the texas a&m university system and associate dean of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university hyland will also be deputy director of the texas engineering experiment station holder of the royce e wisenbaker 39 chair in engineering and a professor in the department of aerospace engineering hyland came to texas a&m from the university of michigan where he had been a professor and chairman of the department of aerospace engineering since 1996 before that he worked for the technical staff of mits lincoln laboratory in 1983 hyland joined harris corp where he organized and led the structural control group in the government aerospace systems division in 1992 he was promoted to senior scientist and in 1994 joined the senior staff of the vice president of engineering of the aerospace systems division where he was a spokesman for control technology and led commercialization efforts involving controls actuator and adaptive neural control technologies hylands most recent research activities include the development of autonomous intelligent control systems for air vehicles; space-flight testing of neural-network technology for autonomous spacecraft control; and the study of opto-electronic and signal processing technologies for long baseline space-borne imaging interferometry for planetary astronomy hyland is a member of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and has written more than 140 technical papers in the areas of spacecraft dynamics and control and mathematical control theory among his numerous honors are several honors from harris corp and the nasa honorary superior accomplishment award hyland holds bachelors masters and phd degrees in aeronautics and astronautics all from the massachusetts institute of technology
"gerard cote a biomedical engineering professor in the dwight look college of engineering is looking for a replacement to the traditional finger-stick monitoring technique people with diabetes need to use every day diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce or properly use insulin a hormone necessary to convert sugar the bodys basic fuel into energy sugar (glucose) builds up in the blood instead of going to the cells people with diabetes must check their blood sugar levels several times a day to help keep their diabetes under control most monitoring methods require a blood sample obtained by sticking a finger with a needle from an automatic device over the years scientists have been trying to find ways for people with diabetes to measure blood glucose without having to puncture the skin for a blood sample hundreds of research groups worldwide are racing to develop a noninvasive glucose sensor cote said cote is director of the department of biomedical engineerings optical bio-sensing laboratory where research focuses on developing optical diagnostics and sensors for medical applications using lasers fiberoptics and electronics he and his colleagues are investigating new noninvasive ways to test blood sugar levels one of the experimental systems cote is testing involves fluorescent polymer microbeads that could be implanted just under a patients skin glucose levels affect how much light the beads emit which could be measured with a wristwatch-like monitor the research is funded by grants from the state of texas advanced research program and the national science foundation and is administered through the texas engineering experiment station ""obviously it isnt totally noninvasive since you need to implant the beads but once theyre in the monitoring process does not involve any daily punctures "" cote said the idea got started at a meeting of spie-the international society for optical engineering where cote attended a talk by a physician who removes tattoos with lasers ""he said boy wouldnt it be nice if we came up with a way to have a smart tattoo instead of just putting ink particles under the skin that started me thinking "" cote said ""i got together with michael pishko in the look colleges chemical engineering department we put our heads together and came up with this approach of polymer beads that are implanted just underneath the skin or in the skin layers the beads would glow or fluoresce differently as glucose concentrations changed"" the american diabetes association estimates that 17 million people in the united states have diabetes but that one third are unaware they have the disease about 10 percent have type 1 diabetes in which the body fails to produce insulin and which is usually diagnosed in children and young adults an overwhelming 90 percent have type 2 diabetes which develops most often in middle-aged and older adults and results from insulin resistance combined with insulin deficiency pain-free glucose monitoring would make it easier for people with diabetes to check glucose levels throughout the day although pishko is now an associate professor of chemical engineering at penn state university cote continues to collaborate with him on the fluorescent glucose sensor project both researchers recently completed three years on the scientific review committee of the juvenile diabetes research foundation and were honored with the foundations mary ann kugel award for their service the committees members review proposals for diabetes research and advise the foundation on their merits many of the foundations members are parents of children with type 1 diabetes (previously known as juvenile diabetes) cote has heard many of their stories ""theres nothing more frustrating to these parents than to see their child break out in a sweat and not know if its because the childs glucose level is too high or if the glucose level is too low one parent said its like his child is near a cliff and he doesnt know if shes walking toward the cliff or away from it"" in cotes experimental process two molecular compounds - dextran a macromolecule composed of glucose subunits and concanavalin a (cona) a protein that recognizes sugar - are encapsulated in polyethylene glycol (peg) beads peg is a polymer commonly used for orthopedic implants because of its compatibility with human tissue dextran is tagged with one fluorescent dye color or fluorophore while cona is tagged with another the experimental microgel beads injected just under the skin are too big to enter cells - unlike tattooing in which cells absorb the pigment instead the beads remain in the spaces between the cells called the interstitial spaces fluid in those spaces contains water and glucose molecules small enough to pass through the peg and reach the fluorophore-tagged polymers cote said the level of glucose in interstitial fluid is related to the blood glucose level thats measured by the traditional needle-stick method the dextran molecules bind to the cona molecules together under light from a laser or light-emitting diode they emit a certain color under fluorescence however when glucose enters the picture it competes with dextran displacing the dextran molecules and binding to the cona the fluorescent color changes according to the amount of glucose present in preliminary studies the researchers injected the microbeads under a rats skin and found that the rat tolerated the implant the beads did fluoresce under the rats skin and indicated a change in glucose level ""the reason were so optimistic about the fluorescent method is because of its specificity "" cote said ""we know that if we implant this its going to respond and the response is going to be to glucose with longer-lasting fluorophores the implants could stay under a persons skin for up to a year before having to be replaced ""the technology to develop the smart tattoo is here "" cote said ""its a matter of doing the work and testing the principles"" human testing could start within five years this invention is protected under us patent no 6 485 703 issued november 26 2002 the a&m system technology licensing office is currently seeking one or more industrial partners to facilitate commercialization of the procedure for more information about licensing this technology please contact page heller at p-heller@tamuedu or 979-847-8682 please reference tamus project #1240"
"texas a&m university professor dr yue kuo is disrupting the semiconductor industry the texas a&m university system was recently issued a patent for kuos alternative to chemical mechanical polishing (cmp) the conventional process used in manufacturing microchips with copper the new method which is simpler uses existing equipment and is more environmentally sound could save manufacturers millions while producing faster microchips the semiconductor industry is moving towards copper instead of aluminum for the tiny lines that connect the millions of transistors in each microchip copper is a much better conductor and the speed of the current generation pentium chips is about at the limit of what can be reached using aluminum interconnection aluminum offers too much resistance which can delay or distort the signal from the transistors additionally copper is a stronger metal and will last longer and result in more reliable chips than those containing aluminum ""copper is starting to be used for newer generations for future generations there is no choice "" explained kuo dow professor of chemical engineering kuo is also a professor of electrical engineering and materials science and engineering and a researcher with the texas engineering experiment station however significant problems exist in manufacturing chips with copper connecting lines compared with aluminum lines aluminum lines are etched on microchips using a plasma reaction a process known as dry etching the process etches the metal on the chips in a particular pattern which is unique to the function of the chip the aluminum is removed in-situ by vaporization to use the same method with copper the temperature would have to be raised to 400 degrees celsius to vaporize the etched copper as kuo noted this is not a practical option ""we know this has been the bottleneck for 50 years "" said kuo with no feasible way to vaporize the copper the industry developed a work-around a process of engraving a pattern into the silicon oxide layer electroplating copper onto the chip and then grinding away the excess using a technique called chemical mechanical polishing (cmp) ""this method is tedious and it has a lot of problems "" said kuo among the problems is the endpoint control of the polishing which intensifies as chip geometry is taken to less than 100 nanometers additionally cmp uses very harsh chemicals that can have serious environmental concerns if not handled properly kuos newly patented method is an alternative to cmp kuo has demonstrated that copper reacts with various plasmas to form copper compounds that are totally soluble in weak aqueous solutions they can be washed away at room temperature eliminating the need for either expensive cmp grinding equipment and hazardous chemicals or metal vaporization ""theyve been looking for the wrong thing everyone thinks of vaporizing the copper reaction product "" said kuo kuo also has developed a method of dry-etching a copper surface using a photo resist mask eliminating the need for the engraving and electroplating equipment it can be used with existing aluminum plasma etching equipment the technology is also ideal for other large-scale electronics such as plat panel displays which have the same type of limitations as microchips and need copper connections a additional patent is pending on this alternative method ""some people call this a disruptive technology "" said kuo explaining that some companies dont want to hear that there is a simple inexpensive alternative to the complicated equipment in which theyve just invested kuo said both methods are proven and tested they have been successfully repeated many times under different circumstances in the thin film nano and microelectronics research laboratory <http://yuekuotamuedu/labhtm> at texas a&m ""we wanted to make sure it doesnt only work once its very repeatable under many conditions "" said kuo kuo said the issued patent is a testament to the validity of the new technology which could have a major impact on the industry ""this could be very big "" said kuo us patent no 6 613 667 ""forming an interconnect of a semiconductor device "" issued on sept 2 2003 an additional patent is pending for the copper dry etching method the a&m system technology licensing office is currently seeking one or more industrial partners to facilitate commercialization of the procedures for more information about licensing this technology please contact page heller at <mailto:p-heller@tamuedu> p-heller@tamuedu or 979-847-8682 please reference tamus project # 1746 <http://tlotamuedu/tlo/documents/indr/1746pdf>"
"san antonio -- the texas engineering experiment station a member of the texas a&m university system has received more than $4 million to help the us department of defense develop test and implement new technologies for the care and maintenance of aging aircraft the $42 million academic center for aging aircraft (acaa) is a partnership between tees the university of dayton research institute and the georgia tech research institute the aircraft sustainability laboratory (asl) -- located at brooks city-base in san antonio and part of the tees texas center for applied technology -- will manage the center us senator kay bailey hutchison and representatives henry bonilla and ciro rodriguez were instrumental in securing funding for the center john ayala asl manager and acaa executive agent said that aging aircraft is one of the biggest challenges facing the us department of defense nasa the federal aviation administration and the coast guard ""many of todays aircraft are older than the pilots flying them and the industry must find ways to keep the aircraft in the air by extending the airplanes life while protecting the safety of crews and passengers "" ayala said ""but there has not been enough focused effort to address the problems of aging aircraft or to train personnel to manage fleets of 60-year-old aircraft"" in addition ayala said that ""aging aircraft sustainment costs are increasing at an unsustainable rate of seven to 12 percent per year and are eating into operations procurement and other budget accounts"" in an effort to significantly reduce the department of defenses $13 billion annual maintenance burden the acaa will test evaluate demonstrate and implement new cost-effective technologies in controlling and preventing corrosion; develop new tools to diagnose aircraft problems; improve reliability integrity and repair of aging aircraft; and work on new technologies for structural and mechanical systems and wiring and avionics the acaa partnership is just one of many interagency collaborative projects taking place at texas a&m ""we have a great deal of experience in interagency collaborative partnerships and have enjoyed a number of successes "" said dr g kemble bennett tees director and texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we are proud to serve as a member of the center and expect to contribute to finding ways of helping protect public safety and save federal dollars"" the centers initial focus is on military aircraft but ayala said that in later years researchers hope to transition to commercial aircraft and other weapons systems"
"college station -- dr stephen a holditch has been named head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university holditch will begin his appointment with the department jan 12 succeeding interim department head dr hans juvkam-wold ""dr holditch is one of the most visible petroleum engineers in the world and a member of the prestigious national academy of engineering "" said dr g kemble bennett texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we are fortunate to have him lead our top-ranked petroleum engineering department"" holditch was a production engineer for shell oil co before joining the texas a&m petroleum engineering faculty in 1976 he also headed sa holditch & associates a petroleum engineering consulting firm from 1977 to 1999 the firm now called holditch reservoir technologies provides consulting services for industrial and government clients in reservoir simulation well testing reservoir engineering natural gas engineering coalbed methane development and the use of horizontal wells to develop gas reservoirs widely recognized in the petroleum industry holditch is the author of more than 100 technical articles and has contributed to two textbooks he has made hundreds of presentations to industry groups on his technical specialties holditch was president of the society of petroleum engineers international (spe) in 2002 and served on the spe board of directors from 2001 to 2003 he has also served as the spe vice president for finance and was a member of the spe board of directors for the spe from 1998 to 2000 holditch was also a trustee for the american institute of mining metallurgical and petroleum engineers (aime) from 1997 to 1998 a registered professional engineer in texas holditch was elected to the national academy of engineering in 1995 and the russian academy of natural science in 1996 he has received numerous awards from spe including the spe distinguished award for petroleum engineering faculty in 1981 and the lester c uren award in 1989 he was named an spe distinguished lecturer in 1982-83 and a distinguished member in 1989 and has held a variety of leadership positions in the society while at texas a&m holditch held the shell distinguished chair in petroleum engineering and the rl adams endowed professorship in petroleum engineering in 1999 the american society of mechanical engineers petroleum division honored holditch for his significant contributions to the petroleum industry with the rhodes industry leadership (oil drop) award holditch also belongs to the american association of petroleum geologists the society of petroleum well log analysts and the society of petroleum evaluation engineers he holds bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in petroleum engineering all from texas a&m"
"college station -- researchers at texas a&m university have made a leap in aircraft engine technology with the development of high-temperature bearings that will allow engines to run more efficiently ""the bearings weve created provide answers to a hurdle for both military and commercial aircraft engines "" said alan palazzolo texas a&m professor of mechanical engineering and director of the vibration control and electromechanics lab ""other universities and companies have been trying to produce a system like this one for a long time"" with collaborators at the nasa glenn research center and the university of toledo palazzolo and his research team were honored with a 2003 r&d 100 award for the new bearings dubbed ""the oscars of invention "" the awards annually showcase 100 of the best products and technologies from around the world in current aircraft engines the bearings that support the rotating parts of the engine can fail because of high temperatures because engines perform their best at higher temperatures there is a need for bearings that can handle such conditions this need has been met by palazzolo and a team of texas a&m students: jason preuss and randy tucker masters students in the mechanical engineering department and andrew hunt a senior civil engineering major the newly developed magnetic bearings support rotating shafts via a magnetic force and a feedback control system this allows for noncontact support of the rotating shaft which eliminates the friction associated with conventional bearings ""our main contribution is the electromagnetic coils in the bearings that can withstand high amounts of heat allowing aircraft engines to run at optimal levels "" hunt said ""it really all comes down to saving money"" the savings result from elimination of the lubrication system a reduction in friction and the ability of the bearings to operate at ultra-high temperatures the bearings can operate at temperatures over 1 000 degrees fahrenheit far higher than the current maximum 400 degrees fahrenheit in the six-year development of the bearings the team has received funding from the united states navy and the university of texas at austin in addition to lab sponsorship from nasa ""the funding allows us to bring more students into the research "" palazzolo said ""they provide creativity and persistence and a lot of recognition should go to them im mainly the coach"" the sky is not the limit for these bearings either other applications include the turbines that power land-based machinery such as steel mills and petrochemical plants which also operate better at higher temperatures ""there are also a lot of good commercial land-based uses for this technology "" preuss said ""it has the potential to increase efficiency as well as reduce maintenance costs for many types of turbomachinery"""
"its ancient speculation surely even the earliest humans looked to the stars and wondered if perhaps somewhere ""out there"" someone was looking back at them dreams of faraway places have lived on throughout the generations of humankind and by dazzling ourselves by taking our first moon steps in 1969 those dreams had become more of a reality visions of further exploration to mars and beyond were rampant as we aspired to colonizing faraway planets three decades have passed by and we havent visited the moon since sadly it has become apparent that our technology hasnt quite caught up with our dreams president george bush has recently proposed a new initiative to build a moon base as a precursor to a manned mission to mars however in spite of these lofty goals numerous obstacles still remain before us ronald lacey and fellow researchers in the texas a&m university system are working to help overcome some of those obstacles ""right now even when the planets are aligned right it will take us about 900 days round-trip to go to mars "" said ronald lacey biological and agricultural engineering researcher for the texas agricultural experiment station and an associate professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at texas a&m university ""if we want to do these kinds of extended manned space flights then they will have to vastly improve life support systems"" astronauts cannot afford to bring with them enough provisions to survive extensive space flights the substantial amount of money and room required to ""pack"" for such a trip is simply not feasible but the answer to this problem may be found all around us ""if you look at life support its air food and water "" lacey said ""if we could somehow grow plants on these trips or on the planets we visit then they could supply all these things"" lacey has developed a low-leak translucent chamber that allows long-term studies of plant growth under various pressure conditions it is hoped that the chambers will offer insight into the response of plant life during extended space voyages specifically if nasa wishes to grow plant life on cold barren planets then low-pressure containment chambers will need to be used the keywords here: low pressure to eliminate leakage the chambers will need to operate near the pressure level of the planet they are on which promises to be a very low atmospheric pressure ""we have actually seen that plants do better under lower pressures "" lacey said ""we have found that plants produce less ethylene (a hormone for plants) which allows for better growth and at lower pressures we found better gas exchange and transpiration rates"" laceys plant chambers boast exceptional ""tightness"" even under large pressure differences the plant chambers have minimal leakage allowing for wide-scale growth testing under numerous pressure levels and gas compositions the chambers are capable of maintaining pressures as low as 5 percent of atmospheric for weeks while exhibiting leak rates as low as 15 percent of volume the chambers were built to accommodate gas supply nutrient supply water drainage instrumentation fans and a cooling system they were designed to support either solid plant growth or hydroponic systems and to ensure the plants will receive ample light availability -- almost the entire surface area allows for photosynthetic radiation while the initial motivation for developing the plant chambers was for extended space travel they could soon become useful to biological research here on earth due to the exceptionally low leak rate and ability to precisely alter the composition of gas in the chamber environmental concerns such as the effects of global warming and air pollution could be studied more precisely for scientists and researchers it is obvious to travel far from our world we will have to take our plants with us the elegant process by which plants and humans sustain one another while not even fully understood on earth must work wherever we wish to call home lacey who is working with dr fred davies and dr chuanjiu he both taes horticulturists hopes his new technology can be one of the first big steps for space travel since the ones taken on the moon 35 years ago ""were working closely with nasa on this project "" lacey said ""were all excited about what this research can mean for the future of space travel"""
college station -- dr paul n roschke professor and interim head of the department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has been named holder of the ap and florence wiley professorship roschke came to texas a&m in 1987 as an assistant professor of civil engineering from 1983 to 1986 roschke was an assistant professor at the university of texas at el paso and has also taught at the university of california davis and california state university roschkes research interests are in the areas of intelligent structural systems; magnetorheological dampers; finite element theory; numerical methods for plates and shells; and transportation structures a registered professional engineer in arizona california new mexico and texas roschke is a member of the american society of civil engineers and sigma xi and a university member of the consortium of universities for research in earthquake engineering roschke was named the jaycee outstanding young man of america in 1978 and named to the national deans list in 1979 the university of texas at el paso named him civil engineering professor of the year and its college of engineering awarded him the outstanding faculty award in 1984 roschke received the texas engineering experiment station select young faculty award for 1991-92 and was named to whos who among americas teachers in 1996 roschke was the halliburton professor in the texas a&m dwight look college of engineering in 1996 and for 2002-03 was the ruth and william neely 52/dow chemical faculty fellow in the college roschke holds a bachelors degree from valparaiso university and masters and phd degrees from purdue university all in civil engineering he did post-doctoral research at ruhr university (bochum germany)
"college station -- what goes up must come down but texas a&m university student damaris sarria knows that sometimes it may take a little longer to come down thats what happens with nasas reduced gravity student flight opportunities program (rgsfop) which provides college students with opportunities to design test fly and evaluate their experiments in a ""weightless"" atmosphere sarria leads a group of four teams from texas a&m that have been chosen to run their experiments through the rgsfop this spring nasa has used a boeing kc-135a aircraft since 1959 to simulate reduced-gravity or weightless environments for research and to train astronauts the aircraft simulates zero-gravity conditions by flying a series of parabolic arcs over the gulf of mexico each maneuver provides about 25 seconds of zero-gravity conditions for the teams to run their experiments the kc-135a is nicknamed ""the vomit comet"" because of its stomach-churning flight trajectory and the unfortunate tendency of its onboard passengers to lose their lunches rgsfop participants submit their proposals to nasa and those teams selected must undergo physicals and training before theyre allowed to fly each team is assigned a flight date and spend that week in houston at nasas johnson space center undergoing safety and physiological training in preparation for the flights each team then flies twice once each day for two days to run its experiments sarria a senior aerospace engineering major said that the texas a&m teams worked with faculty adviser igor carron assistant director of the spacecraft technology center in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) carron helped the groups choose their research topics but then the students took over each team must design and build their projects run the experiments crunch the numbers and report the results back to nasa sarria was part of a team that flew last year she said the experiment she and her team are working on this year -- ""low-velocity collisions of particulate matter in microgravity: a fundamental study to better understand near-earth objects"" -- is a continuation of work started last year ""last years experiment provided some video benchmarks of how particulate clouds combine together "" sarria said ""this year were looking at more irregularly shaped objects such as 16- or 20-sided dice when an object like that hits a particulate cloud how does the cloud deflect off that object this could aid in the design of spacecraft or probes to keep the loose debris found on an asteroids surface from interfering with the onboard camera or instruments as it lands on the asteroid"" in addition to researchers the students also must be teachers and fund-raisers each team must include an outreach or education plan in its proposals and raise the money to pay for the experiments and outreach efforts funds come from academic departments and other groups ""its a lot of hard work but its worth it "" sarria said ""i want to be an astronaut and ive been trying to motivate and encourage other students to participate in the kc-135 program"" the four texas a&m teams participating this year are: * ""low-velocity collisions of particulate matter in microgravity: a fundamental study to better understand near-earth objects"" -- team leader sarria; ian horbaczewski sophomore electrical engineering major; zach reeder senior aerospace engineering major; and kyle schroeder senior aerospace engineering major * ""the effects in ocular movement in microgravity"" -- team leader alicia marie rutledge senior aerospace engineering major; allison barnard freshman mechanical engineering major; jesse bowes freshman computer science major; and chelsey dankenbring freshman aerospace engineering major * ""asteroid anchoring: low-velocity solutions to study an asteroids surface"" -- team leader jeanna copley sophomore computer engineering major; jerry beasley junior aerospace engineering major; nyria guevara sophomore chemical engineering major; and bradley vermillion senior electrical engineering major * ""wind-sheared waves on thin films under microgravity"" -- team leader grant j kemper senior aerospace engineering major; maria liberto freshman aerospace engineering major; johnathan russell senior aerospace engineering major; and joyce varghese sophomore electrical engineering major"
college station -- dr roger e smith a professor in the department of civil engineering at texas a&m university and a researcher with the texas transportation institute (tti) has been named holder of the herbert d kelleher professorship in transportation smith came to texas a&m in 1986 as an associate professor from 1968 to 1975 smith was an officer in the us army corps of engineers attaining the rank of captain in 1970 he also was a geotechnical and materials engineer for hurst-rosche engineers inc from 1979 to 1980 and technical director for eres consultants inc from 1980 to 1986 smiths areas of expertise are in pavement evaluation rehabilitation management and design; infrastructure management; transportation materials; and construction materials a registered professional engineer in illinois and texas smith is a fellow of the american society of civil engineers and a member of the transportation research board the american society for testing and materials and the american society for engineering education in february 2004 the transportation research board appointed smith member emeritus of its committee on pavement maintenance smith received the dick and joyce birdwell endowed teaching award for 2002-03 in the department of civil engineering at texas a&m and in 1997 smith received the tti/zachry senior researcher award in recognition of his research accomplishments and national standing in the field of pavement design construction maintenance and performance and his continued leadership and support of research within tti smith holds bachelors masters and phd degrees in civil engineering from the university of illinois he also holds a bachelors degree in english literature from wabash college
"college station -- dr bjarne stroustrup professor and holder of the college of engineering chair in computer science at texas a&m university has been elected to the prestigious national academy of engineering the academy honors those who have made important and significant contributions to engineering theory and practice as well as unusual accomplishment in the pioneering of new fields of technology ""election to the national academy of engineering is among the highest professional distinctions awarded to an engineer "" said dr g kemble bennett texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""through his achievements in computer science dr stroustrup has indeed made important contributions to engineering theory and practice and we are proud to have such a distinguished academician among our ranks"" stroustrup joined the department of computer science faculty in the fall of 2002 he is the designer and original implementer of the c++ computer programming language the most widely used language supporting object-oriented programming using c++ as his tool stroustrup pioneered the use of object-oriented and generic programming techniques in application areas where efficiency is a prerequisite valerie e taylor head of the department of computer science at texas a&m said ""based on dr stroustrups original work and continuing efforts c++ has become one of the most influential programming languages in history we are extremely proud to have dr stroustrup as a faculty member and of his well-deserved recognition by the national academy of engineering"" stroustrups book the c++ programming language is the most widely read book of its kind and has been translated into 18 languages a later book the design and evolution of c++ broke new ground in the description of the way a programming language is shaped by ideas ideals problems and practical constraints stroustrup was named one of the 20 most influential people in the computer industry in the last 20 years by byte magazine in 1995 he also has been named an at&t bell laboratories fellow and an at&t fellow he received the 1993 association for computing machinery (acm) grace murray hopper award for his early work on c++ and is an acm fellow this year nae elected 76 new members and 11 foreign associates bringing the total us membership to 2 174 and the number of foreign associates to 172"
washington dc -- the texas center for applied technology (tcat) presented an interactive technology display for members of the united states senate and house of representatives feb 9 in washington dc tcat a center in the texas engineering experiment station participated in the demonstration as part of the university xxi program a partnership between texas a&m university the university of texas at austin and the us army university xxi focuses on digitization research in support of the us armys transformation to digital tools and environments the program leverages the faculty staff research engineers and students of both universities in a working partnership with the army to solve problems and support its operations the demonstration which took place in the dirksen senate office building on capitol hill was sponsored by the us army program executive office for simulation training and instrumentation (peo-stri) the three-dimensional terrain visualization tool has been integrated into the armys analysis and control element (ace) system the central collection and analysis point for army intelligence collection sources at the army division and corps level
"college station -- dr deepa kundur wants to see pirates walk the plank no not the swashbuckling dastardly villains who pillage and loot on the high seas todays pirates are more likely to be found sitting at a computer and kundur an assistant professor of electrical engineering at texas a&m university aims to keep them from illegally obtaining and using multimedia such as music and video files with one of the first phds in the field kundur is a pioneer in the area of multimedia security for digital rights management which combines principles of engineering business and law to manage user rights to multimedia content such as music or video engineers work to provide security measures to enforce usage rules devised in part by the business and legal sectors while protecting the contents commercial viability unlike computer security that protects data on individual computers and network security that protects the information channel this type of multimedia security protects intellectual property ""a content provider such as a streaming-video provider or a dvd vendor needs guarantees that users wont misuse or pirate the content "" kundur said ""but if the security mechanisms are too obtrusive or the high cost of protection is passed on to the customer the user may quickly become frustrated finding other sometimes illegal means to download content so digital rights management design is a balance between security commercial viability and legal policy promoting fair information exchange for all parties"" kundur develops the security algorithms to try to find this appropriate balance for digital content she said her work is a combination of traditional cryptography signal processing information theory and interestingly enough psychology ""in general in a security application you have an adversary -- a hacker or pirate "" she said ""youre trying to protect the content from misuse by this adversary one way to do this is to make the cost of applying a successful attack by the opponent greater than the value gained from the attack thus you want to discourage unwanted behavior but use just enough technological complexity to keep the cost down and avoid frustrating legitimate users who actually paid for fair use of the content"" kundur said that two classes of security are used active security approaches such as encryption aim to prevent a particular act such as piracy by sending scrambled data to the user whose computer or dvd player decrypts the content before playing with passive security methods such as digital watermarking or fingerprinting hidden security tags are embedded in the document and because the tags always travel with the content illegal distribution or tampering of the information can later be identified and traced back to the source although an attack is not prevented it is discouraged because the opponents action can be detected and ideally traced back to the source kundur said that the current research trend is to combine both encryption and fingerprinting technologies in a digital rights management system so that the information is protected throughout the overall distribution chain ""because a security process is only as strong as the weakest link it is necessary to make use of these complementary protection measures "" she said ""there is a need to for solutions that provide a better compromise between security and complexity and were using more advanced analytical models to look at the problem on a semantic level not on a bit-by-bit level perfect security may be unattainable in a practical context but we hope that further research in this area will result in more effective yet efficient designs"""
"college station -- vikram k kinra the general dynamics professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a 2004 fellow of the american academy of mechanics (aam) new fellows must be nominated by two current aam fellows and are elected based on their contributions to aerospace engineering kinra is one of only three aam fellows elected for 2004 his research areas are in wave propagation material damping fracture mechanics and ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation kinra said that it means a lot to him to see his name alongside other fellows whose abilities he has respected throughout his career ""many of the current fellows have been my mentors "" he said ""it is indeed an honor to join them as a fellow"" kinra joined the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m in september 1982 he has received numerous awards including a distinguished teaching award in 1998 by the association of former students at texas a&m a lockheed martin award for excellence in engineering teaching in 1997 and a distinguished alumnus award in 1995 from the college of engineering at utah state university he received his bachelors degree from the indian institute of technology (kampur india) his masters degree from utah state university and his doctorate from brown university"
"college station -- dr robin autenrieth holder of the ap and florence wiley professorship iii in civil engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a 2004 aldo leopold leadership fellowship autenrieth is one of 20 academic environmental scientists from throughout the united states and guam who were selected as aldo leopold leadership fellows for 2004 the organization announced this years winners today (march 15) the aldo leopold leadership program provides scientists with intensive communications and leadership training to improve their ability to communicate effectively with nonscientific audiences especially policy makers the media business leaders and the public fellows are selected annually through a competitive application process ""we as researchers need to raise the profile of what engineers do "" autenrieth said noting that only a small number of engineers generally are selected for the leopold fellowship ""im hoping that this program will give me greater comfort as a communicator and help me have a bigger impact"" already at texas a&m she is involved with a program that instructs math and science teachers about engineering and teaches them how to integrate engineering concepts into their classrooms autenrieths studies involve human health risk assessment - measuring contaminants in the environment and in humans to better understand their relationship and effects on human health federal regulations for air and water quality in large part are determined by human health effects she said autenrieth also researches ways to restore wetlands and soils from the damages of oil spills using biodegradation a natural process she isolates organisms capable of degrading petroleum compounds and grows them in the laboratory she then sees what the optimal conditions are for the compounds to degrade quickly the research will help determine how best to restore areas contaminated by oil autenrieth said it is important that researchers be able to explain their results to the general public particularly with regard to environmental issues ""solutions sometimes dont get adopted because people dont understand them "" she said ""this fellowship will help sensitize me to public opinion and needs and also will teach me how to better integrate them into environmental solutions"" autenrieth has been a member of texas a&ms department of civil engineering since 1986 in 2000 she received a joint appointment in the department of environmental and occupational health in the school of rural public health in the texas a&m university system health science center she is a member of the society of civil engineers the american chemical society the association of environmental engineering and science professors and the water environment federation the aldo leopold leadership program was launched in 1998 with the goal of improving the flow of accurate clear scientific information to policy makers the media and the public by training outstanding academic environmental scientists to be better communicators of complex scientific information the program is named for aldo leopold a renowned environmental scientist who communicated his scientific knowledge simply and eloquently his writings including his 1949 book a sand county almanac are credited with infusing the emerging conservation movement with good science and a stewardship ethic"
"college station texas -- an ongoing effort in south texas to better prepare advanced technology technicians has been recognized for excellence by the texas association of college technical educators the south texas advanced technology education (state) project headquartered at del mar college received the presidents award for excellence 2004 for best practices in technical education at the associations conference in corpus christi april 1-2 the projects principal investigator dr lee sloan and director dee salmon accepted the award plaque along with del mars acting president jose l alaniz as part of the award salmon and sloan will present the program during the general session at the tacte fall conference in austin the state program which is administered through the texas engineering experiment station (tees) aims to reduce the time required to produce associate degreed technicians chiefly in process technology in response to industrys rapidly evolving training needs funded by the national science foundation for $15 million state is a partnership of five community colleges -- del mar victoria south texas coastal bend and texas state technical college - as well as texas a&m university-corpus christi tees and more than a dozen industry partners that include companies such as flint hill resources lp valero refining bp chemical and equistar ""state opens the door to high technology careers for the underrepresented and largely hispanic south texas population and provides industry with a highly skilled workforce "" said sloan who is dean of occupational education and technology at del mar ""this award acknowledges and affirms the efforts and contribution of everyone involved with the project"" more information about the state program can be found at http://wwwdelmaredu/state the texas association of college technical educators is a professional organization that serves to promote the needs of postsecondary workforce education throughout the state to promote collaboration and cooperation among educational providers and to assist in providing professional development for technical educators"
college station texas -- dr theresa a maldonado associate dean in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and assistant director of the texas engineering experiment station has been named to serve as a member of the national academy of engineerings committee on diversity in the engineering workforce the mission of the nae diversity program is to increase the diversity of the united states engineering workforce by developing a strong domestic talent pool in addressing this mission the nae convenes stakeholders to share knowledge identify information and program needs and initiate actions to address those needs maldonado joined the texas a&m engineering program in september 2003 from 1981 to 1986 maldonado was a member of the technical staff at at&t bell laboratories working in fiber optic systems fiber components and cable design after completing her doctoral studies in 1990 she joined the university of texas at arlington as an assistant professor in the department of electrical engineering in 1999-2001 she was a program director at the national science foundation where she managed engineering research centers and served on a number of nsf-wide committees including career and nanoscale science and engineering she returned to uta in 2001 as associate dean of engineering for research and graduate studies in july 2002 she was appointed associate vice president for research and became director of the uta institute for nanoscale science and engineering research and teaching maldonado was a 1991-96 nsf presidential young investigator and received the halliburton award for teaching excellence and the halliburton award for outstanding young faculty from the uta college of engineering in 1995 she was inducted into the inaugural council of outstanding young engineering alumni at georgia tech at nsf maldonado was recognized with the 2001 directors award for program management excellence and the directors award for collaborative integration for her services on the career coordinating committee and with a certificate of appreciation for distinguished service in the development of the nsf program advance a registered professional engineer in texas maldonado is a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and a member of the optical society of america the international society for optical engineering eta kappa nu tau beta pi sigma xi and the society of hispanic professional engineers she holds bachelors masters and phd degrees in electrical engineering from the georgia institute of technology
"college station -- five faculty in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university have received the prestigious nsf career award for career development dr michael bevan assistant professor of chemical engineering; dr yu ding assistant professor of industrial engineering; dr andreas klappenecker assistant professor of computer science; dr scott socolofsky assistant professor of civil engineering; and dr xi zhang assistant professor of electrical engineering all received career grants totaling $2 million in addition dr sam brody an assistant professor in the department of landscape architecture and urban planning in the texas a&m college of architecture received a career award for research to be conducted through the texas engineering experiment station each grant was for $400 000 and will continue through 2009 the nsf career awards are given to junior faculty members for their career-development and teaching activities highlighting them as upcoming academic leaders in the 21st century awardees must include plans for teaching and research in their applications for career grants ""the national science foundation career award is prestigious recognition for young faculty members and we are very pleased to have not one but five being recognized in the look college this year "" said dr g kemble bennett texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""this reflects very positively on the quality of our academic programs and indicates a bright future as well"" bevan joined the texas a&m department of chemical engineering in august 2002 bevans research involves measurement of colloidal interactions dynamics and structure relevant to a variety of complex phenomena to probe a broad range of length time and energy scales bevans research group uses microscopy techniques to directly measure interactions in colloidal systems near interfaces and scattering methods to study phase behavior and structure bevan holds bachelors degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from lehigh university and a phd in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university ding came to texas a&m in august 2001 his research focuses on the optimal utilization of complex sensing systems for improving the quality of products processes and services ding received a bachelors degree in precision engineering from the university of science and technology of china (hefei china); a masters degree in mechanical engineering from pennsylvania state university; a second masters degree in precision instruments from tsinghua university (beijing china); and a phd in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan klappenecker came to texas a&m university in 1999 as a visiting assistant professor of mathematics and joined the department of computer science in 2000 his research interests include the design and analysis of algorithms particularly quantum algorithms; signal and image processing; and cryptography klappenecker was named fellow-at-large of the santa fe institute in 2000 he received his phd in computer science from the university of karlsruhe in germany in 1998 socolofsky joined the texas a&m civil engineering faculty in january 2003 his research interests are in the areas of environmental fluid mechanics multiphase flow direct ocean carbon sequestration and shallow flow stability he holds a bachelors degree in civil environmental and architectural engineering from the university of colorado and masters and phd degrees in civil and environmental engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology for more see zhangs current research interests are in the design modeling and performance analysis of protocols and systems for multicast and unicast computer communications over wired and wireless networks supporting quality-of-service guarantees; information theory; statistical communication theory; random signal processing; and distributed computer-control systems he is a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers and a member of the association for computing machinery zhang received bachelors and masters degrees from xidian university (xian china); a masters degree from lehigh university all in electrical engineering and computer science; and a phd from the university of michigan at ann arbor in electrical engineering and computer science (ee-systems) brodys research interests are in the areas of environmental planning coastal sustainability ecosystem management and geographic information systems he holds a bachelors degree from bowdoin college a masters degree from the university of michigan-ann arbor and a phd from the university of north carolina-chapel hill"
"college station texas - dr yu ding an assistant professor in the department of industrial engineering at texas a&m university has received a national science foundation (nsf) career award for his research on quality improvement using distributed sensor networks the $400 000 grant will continue through 2009 the nsf career award is the most prestigious award for new faculty members for their career-development and teaching activities highlighting them as upcoming academic leaders in the 21st century dings research will focus on quality improvement of complicated manufacturing systems under the monitoring of sensor networks ranging from monitoring equipment status to tracking down the root causes of quality-related problems often sensors signal alarms when equipment is malfunctioning or inspections are out of specification but the sensors do not specify why ding said that in many situations people collect a lot of data using distributed sensor networks and simply store it in a database methodologies that can wisely and effectively piece together critical quality-related information collected by sensor networks and distributed in a large-scale manufacturing environment are needed ding said he wants to enhance the effectiveness of the sensors by optimizing their distribution in manufacturing processes and also developing a sensor self-diagnosis capability to ensure the sensor system reliability as a result of dings research he can determine in a timely manner what element of the sensor is not working properly and also assess the health of manufacturing systems under surveillance ""we want to be able to correct the quality-related problem and minimize the cost without slowing down the production process "" ding said awardees must include plans for teaching and research in their application for a career grant ding plans to increase research opportunities for local high school teachers and students by having them come to texas a&m to learn about current research projects and metrology facilities ding said he was very pleased when he received notice of his award ""this award can really sustain the research programs development "" he said ""this area of research is very promising - it has a lot of potential to expand to application areas beyond manufacturing"" ding joined texas a&ms department of industrial engineering in august 2001 he received a bachelors degree in precision engineering in 1993 from the university of science and technology of china (hefei china) he earned two masters degrees one in mechanical engineering in 1998 from pennsylvania state university and one in precision instruments in 1996 from tsinghua university (beijing china) he received his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering in 2001 from the university of michigan"
college station texas - dr scott socolofsky an assistant professor in the department of civil engineering at texas a&m university has received a national science foundation (nsf) career award for his research on multiphase plume behavior in natural water bodies the $400 000 grant will continue through 2009 the nsf career award is the most prestigious award for new faculty members for their career-development and teaching activities highlighting them as upcoming academic leaders in the 21st century socolofskys research will focus on the behavior of bubbles droplets and particles in the deep ocean his research will aid in answering the question of what happens to oil and natural gas that is released during an accidental oil-well blowout knowing where oil and gas particles diffuse during an oil-well blowout can help make cleanup both easier and quicker his research will also help with deep-ocean disposal of carbon dioxide which researchers are currently investigating by collecting carbon dioxide condensing it into liquid and injecting it into the ocean the carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere more slowly than with current disposal techniques this process can reduce the rate of increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere awardees must include plans for teaching as well as research in their application for a career grant socolofsky said he wants to develop new undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental fluid mechanics he also would like to develop an exchange program between texas a&m and the university of karlsruhe in germany where he did his postdoctoral work in environmental fluid mechanics socolofsky joined the department of civil engineering in january 2003 he received his bachelor of science degree in civil environmental and architectural engineering in 1994 from the university of colorado in boulder he obtained both a master of science degree and a doctorate in civil and environmental engineering from the massachusetts institute of technology in 1997 and 2001 respectively
"college station texas - dr xi zhang an assistant professor in the department of electrical engineering at texas a&m university has received a national science foundation career award for his research on the integrated network-protocol architectures for multicast services over mobile wireless networks the $400 000 grant will continue through 2009 the nsf career award is the most prestigious award for new faculty members for their career-development and teaching activities highlighting them as upcoming academic leaders in the 21st century zhangs research will focus on protocol integration architecture for mobile wireless multicast services - communication from one to many - over mobile wireless networks zhang will develop a set of algorithms to control data distribution from the source to many mobile receivers the mobile receivers need to send feedback to the source to allow the source to continually make updates and improve the quality of service of the multicast transmissions this feedback is important because it helps enhance the reliability and validity of the transmission between the source and multiple mobile receivers this research would be useful to air traffic control facilities and weather centers for instance airplanes could each have a computer on board that would provide pilots continually with updated information about runway availability vehicles with navigation systems would receive information about current traffic conditions weather centers would receive information on current hazard situations such as approaching storms awardees must include plans for teaching and research in their application for a career grant zhang plans to develop a new graduate course on mobile wireless networks integrating the planned research infrastructure into the course he also will design a new undergraduate course on computer networks and the internet including lab equipment with a wireless local area network that can communicate with other networks students will work with a test-bed system to confirm how well the algorithm works zhang said this award can support more doctoral students doing ground-breaking research ""i feel a great responsibility to produce the very best world-class research results for the projects sponsored by my award "" he said ""this is just the starting point and we have a long way to go"" zhang joined the department of electrical engineering in february 2002 he received bachelors and masters degrees from xidian university (xian china); a masters degree from lehigh university; and his doctoral degree from the university of michigan in electrical engineering and computer science (ee systems)"
"college station texas - dr michael bevan an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university has received a national science foundation (nsf) career award for his research on nanotechnology the $400 000 grant will continue through 2009 the nsf career award is the most prestigious award for new faculty members for their career-development and teaching activities highlighting them as upcoming academic leaders in the 21st century bevans research is in the area of nanotechnology which is the science of manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale he will measure the interactions of colloids which are tiny building blocks measured in nanometers by using things such as electrical fields and optical tweezers bevan can force the colloids to assemble into crystals with this directed assembly bevan is able to manipulate the structure of the crystals allowing him to research their reactions with different substances colloids are found in many substances such as protein and latex paint bevan said thus understanding colloids behavior has a wide range of research applications because crystals interact with light colloid-based crystals can be used to build optical sensors and possibly help develop computers that can run on light awardees must include plans for teaching as well as research in their application for a career grant bevan plans to integrate his research into courses by using 3-d movies and simulation animations that students will create he said he feels this will aid students by allowing them to develop the ""right picture in their heads"" about concepts such as brownian motion which affects particles suspended in water ""i believe this component allows me to have synergy with my role as an educator and a researcher "" he said bevan joined the department of chemical engineering in august 2002 he received bachelor of science degrees in chemical engineering and in chemistry in 1994 from lehigh university and earned a phd in chemical engineering from carnegie mellon university in 1999"
"college station texas - dr andreas klappenecker an assistant professor in the department of computer science at texas a&m university has received a national science foundation (nsf) career award for his research on quantum algorithms the $400 000 grant will continue through 2009 the nsf career award is the most prestigious award for new faculty members for their career-development and teaching activities highlighting them as upcoming academic leaders in the 21st century klappeneckers research will focus on the design and analysis of quantum algorithms he wants to expedite computations by operating in the quantum mechanical regime meaning that many computations can be performed simultaneously rather than separately as with classical algorithms he will study various applications of quantum algorithms such as pattern recognition and communication problems klappenecker said one goal of his research is the development of design principles for quantum algorithms to help remedy the lack of quantum software ""designing quantum algorithms is significantly more difficult than the design of classical algorithms and we have a quantum software crisis for that reason "" he said awardees must include plans for teaching and research in their application for a career grant klappenecker plans on creating and further developing classes on quantum computing randomized algorithms cryptography and security a portion of the teaching component will also go toward his weekly quantum computing seminar which has been running for three years klappenecker joined texas a&ms department of computer science in 2000 he received his phd in computer science from the university of karlsruhe in germany in 1998 he was also named fellow-at-large of the santa fe institute in 2000"
college station texas -- dr john l junkins distinguished professor of aerospace engineering and holder of the george j eppright chair at texas a&m university has been awarded the 2004 tycho brahe award from the institute of navigation (ion) ion gives the award annually to one individual in recognition of outstanding contributions to the science of space navigation guidance and control the award is named in honor of the 16th century pioneering danish astronomer tycho brahe whose measurements of the motion of mars led to the discovery -- by brahes colleague johannes kepler -- of the laws of planetary motion the award cites junkins prolific and fundamental advances which have supported over a dozen spaceflight missions and are documented in over 300 publications including five textbooks junkins will receive the award during the institutes 60th annual meeting june 7-9 in dayton ohio a texas a&m faculty member since 1985 junkins research interests are in engineering mechanics broadly and spacecraft dynamics navigation guidance and control in particular junkins is a member of the national academy of engineering and the international academy of astronautics and a fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) and the american astronautical society (aas) among his numerous honors are the 1990 aiaa g edward pendray aerospace literature award; the 1991 auburn university college of engineering outstanding aerospace engineering alumnus award; the 1992 sigma xi distinguished scientist award; the 1997 aiaa theodore von karman medal and lectureship; and the 1999 international astronautical federation frank j malina medal junkins holds a bachelors degree from auburn university and masters and phd degrees from the university of california los angeles all in aerospace engineering
college station texas -- dr john weese regents professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2004 american society for engineering education (asee) w leighton collins award the award is the societys highest for service to education in engineering and engineering technology and allied fields weese will be honored at the societys annual awards banquet june 23 in salt lake city as part of the societys annual conference and exposition weeses research interests are in the areas of solid mechanics elasticity dynamics vibrations structural dynamics experimental stress analysis and acoustics weese joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 1986 as head of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution a position he held until 1997 since then he has been a mechanical engineering professor interim head of the department of mechanical engineering and the accreditation coordinator for the dwight look college of engineering he was previously with the national science foundation serving as director of the division of engineering science in mechanics structures and materials engineering and director of the division of mechanical engineering and applied mechanics from 1974-83 he was dean of the school of engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics at old dominion university he was previously dean of engineering and a professor at the university of denver and an assistant professor of mechanics at the us air force academy in denver weese was asee president from 1999-2000 and received the societys frederick j berger award in 1997 for academic leadership in technology education he is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) and the 1994 recipient of the asme ben c sparks medal in 1997 he was named a fellow of the accreditation board for engineering and technology he is a registered professional engineer in colorado virginia and texas weese received doctoral and masters degrees in engineering mechanics from cornell university and a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from kansas state university
"college station texas -- silicon laboratories president and ceo daniel artusi advised electrical engineering graduates aiming for integrated circuit design careers to constantly upgrade their knowledge to keep pace with the fast-changing industry artusi was on campus in april to present a contribution to the analog and mixed-signal center for graduate student research support ""gifts like this are especially important to our educational program they enable us to produce graduates who are well prepared for the challenges facing industry "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering silicon laboratories based in austin is a leader in the development of proprietary high-performance mixed-signal integrated circuits for a broad range of applications including wireless handsets computer modems and set-top boxes ""supporting the engineering program at a leading university like texas a&m is a key element in fostering a strong pool of local mixed-signal design talent that we can recruit from for years to come "" artusi said he spoke to students following a luncheon with engineering administrators the analog and mixed-signal center located at texas a&m and part of the texas engineering experiment station had its beginnings in 1976 and was formally created in 1999 research focuses on analog built-in testing data converters low-voltage/low-power circuits and rf and baseband circuits the centers director is dr edgar sanchez-sinencio professor of electrical engineering and holder of the ti/jack kilby chair in analog engineering researchers at the center have authored more than 300 technical papers and co-authored several textbooks on neural network implementations low voltage analog circuit design and switched-capacitor circuits silicon laboratories gift will count in the one spirit one vision campaign the universitys multiyear fund-raising campaign aimed at helping texas a&m attain national top 10 status among public universities"
"college station texas -- dr b don russell regents professor and jw runyon jr 35 professor of electrical engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the national society of professional engineers russells fellow status will be conveyed in july at the annual nspe convention of the 50 000 nspe members only 298 have been granted fellow status the holder of seven patents in protection and control systems for electrical distribution systems russell is an internationally recognized expert in power system control and protection and has served as director of the power systems automation laboratory at texas a&m for more than 25 years russell received a bachelors degree in 1970 and a masters degree in 1971 both in electrical engineering from texas a&m university he earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from the university of oklahoma in 1975 before joining the texas a&m electrical engineering department in 1976 as an assistant professor russell is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) the worlds largest technical professional society russell has served as president vice-president and secretary of the ieee power engineering society and is also a member of the american society of engineering education in addition russell is a former president of the brazos chapter of the texas society of professional engineers (tspe) and has served as the state director of tspe among his many awards and honors is the 1996 ""r&d 100"" award -- the ""oscars of invention"" -- for inventing one of the 100 most technologically significant new products russell also won the ieee herman halperin electric transmission and distribution award the societys highest honor in 1997 for his outstanding contributions to power engineering nspe honored him in 1991 with its outstanding engineering achievement award"
college station texas -- dr barry lawrence associate professor in the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution has been named holder of the harvey hubbell professorship in industrial distribution in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university the hubbell professorship is a development professorship a new type of professorship for associate professors implemented by the look college to recognize and reward outstanding performance in teaching research and service of faculty with a high potential for continued professional growth lawrence also directs the supply chain systems laboratory in the look college and is a member of the thomas and joan read center for distribution research and education in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) lawrence joined the industrial distribution faculty in 1995 as a lecturer and became an assistant professor in 1997 his research interests are in the areas of supply chain management; inventory and management asset optimization; industrial distribution systems; erp systems; software and strategy; distribution process matching to information technology; and e-business implementation lawrence holds a bachelors degree in finance from the university of texas an mba from the southwest texas state university (now texas state university) and a phd in information and operations management from texas a&m
"college station texas -- dr dennis l oneal holder of the holdredge/paul professorship in engineering education has been named head of the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university oneal has served as interim head of the department since may 2003 he is also associate director of the energy systems laboratory in the texas engineering experiment station and will head the tees mechanical engineering division ""dr oneal has done an outstanding job serving as interim department head "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""following an exhaustive search dr oneal was clearly the best candidate to lead the mechanical engineering program and i look forward to his continued contributions to the department college and entire university in the future"" oneal came to texas a&m in 1983 as an assistant professor his research focuses on air conditioning refrigeration heat transfer fans ventilation systems and energy forecasting a prolific author oneal wrote on refrigeration for the mechanical engineers handbook and has written more than 150 technical and popular articles he has been a principal or co-principal investigator on projects totaling more than $16 million oneal is previous holder of the ed brockett professorship and has received the texas a&m association of former students distinguished teaching award in the dwight look college of engineering he was among the first named a look college faculty fellow in 1996 and has earned the texas a&m mechanical engineering departments outstanding undergraduate teaching award a fellow of the american society of heating refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers oneal has held various ashrae leadership positions and received the societys distinguished service award oneal also is active in the american society of mechanical engineers oneal holds a bachelors degree in nuclear engineering from texas a&m he earned a masters degree from oklahoma state university and his phd from purdue university both in mechanical engineering"
college station texas -- dr christine ehlig-economides has joined texas a&m engineering as a professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and holder of the albert b stevens chair in petroleum engineering ehlig-economides came to texas a&m from the university of houston where she was a tenured professor of chemical engineering she previously spent 20 years with schlumberger working in about 30 countries and before that was petroleum engineering department head at the university of alaska-fairbanks from 1981 to 1983 as one of the foremost contributors in the reservoir-testing field ehlig-economides has been distinguished by contributions in analytical models for well-test analysis in the articulation of the practical methodology for well-test interpretation in the design of testing procedures and in the evaluation of testing hardware and pressure transient data quality she joined the texas a&m faculty in may with a charge to develop an engineering research center for energy ehlig-economides was elected to the prestigious national academy of engineering in 2003 she is a distinguished member of the society of petroleum engineers (spe) and has held a variety of leadership positions in the society in 1982 she was named the alaska spe engineer of the year and received the spe distinguished achievement award for petroleum engineering faculty she received the spe formation evaluation award in 1995 and the societys lester c uren award in 1997 and was named distinguished lecturer in 1997 ehlig-economides is also a member of sigma xi the national research honor society her degrees include a bachelors degree in math-science from rice university a masters degree in chemical engineering from the university of kansas and a phd in petroleum engineering from stanford university
"college station texas -- they call it the texas buzzard the sleek unmanned aerial vehicle (uav) built by a team of texas a&m aerospace engineering students has flown to a third-place tie in an international competition for uavs the texas a&m uav team tied for third place with a team from santa clara university in the 2nd annual student unmanned aerial vehicle competition june 25-27 in st inigoes md it was texas a&ms first entry in the competition which is sponsored by the association for unmanned vehicle systems international (auvsi) the texas a&m team placed first in the competitions technical paper and oral presentation categories and won the safety award for their operating procedures first place went to virginia commonwealth university a team from istanbul technical university (turkey) finished second the third-place finish won the team $2 000 in prize money and plaques for their non-flying wins members of the texas buzzard team were joel hill a masters degree student in aerospace engineering; zach reeder and kyle schroeder seniors in aerospace engineering; and brian wood a masters degree student in aerospace engineering dr thomas strganac associate professor of aerospace engineering was the teams faculty adviser david lund director of texas a&ms aerospace vehicle systems institute was technical adviser each team in the competition had to build an autonomous uav and fly it on an aerial reconnaissance mission to fulfill mission requirements each teams uav had to take off under manual control change over to autonomous or programmed flight in the air and fly itself under computer control with no input from the team the ""buzzard"" started its life as a radio-controlled sailplane or glider originally intended to fly in sailplane competitions the team added an engine programmable autopilot and wireless-linked video camera to turn it into an uninhabited aerial vehicle (uav) for the auvsi competition some things about the competition surprised the texas a&m team ""almost all the other teams were computer science guys not aerospace "" reeder said ""we look at things entirely differently from they way they do"" the uavs had to navigate a course given to each team the day before the flight observe and send back images of targets located at several points along the course return to the starting point and either land by itself or switch back to manual control for the landing they had to provide images of two kinds of target: a 10- by 10-ft square painted on the ground and a group of ""military vehicles"" images sent back from the uav had to be detailed enough that stripes painted inside the square could be seen clearly and the military vehicles had to be identified their location confirmed by gps and the directions they were pointed identified winning the competitions safety award was especially important to lund and strganac ""we put a lot of emphasis on operating the vehicle safely "" lund said ""its good to have that recognized"""
college station texas -- dr dan hill will join texas a&m engineering in august as a professor in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering and holder of the robert whiting endowed professorship for teaching excellence in petroleum engineering hill comes to texas a&m from the university of texas at austin where he taught for 22 years and directed the improved well performance research program for the past five years he previously was an advanced research engineer for marathon oils denver research center in littleton colo hills research program will be in the areas of well stimulation well completion performance production logging and multilateral well technology he is a world-renowned specialist in production logging multiphase flow in pipes and well stimulation author of two textbooks on petroleum production hill has taught undergraduate courses in thermodynamics fluid properties petroleum engineering design and production engineering and graduate courses in advanced production engineering production logging well stimulation and two-phase flow in pipes hill is a prolific writer with more than 150 publications technical reports and professional presentations to his credit including textbooks production logging: theoretical and interpretive elements and petroleum production systems additionally he has conducted more than 60 industry short courses and workshops and holds five patents for improved oil recovery through injection processes a registered professional engineer in texas hill is a distinguished member of the society of professional engineers (spe) and a member of the american institute of chemical engineers and of the society of professional well log analysts he was named spe distinguished lecturer for 1988-89 and has held numerous leadership positions in the society hill holds a bachelors degree from texas a&m and masters and phd degrees from the university of texas at austin all in chemical engineering
"college station texas -- theres more to getting a rocket off the ground than lighting the fuse and getting out of the way just ask a team of texas a&m university engineering students who launched their own rocket earlier this spring the rocketeers -- 30 students from the universitys departments of aerospace mechanical and electrical engineering -- began designing their rocket last fall as part of a multidisciplinary design course funded by the boeing co the eight-foot-tall rocket (t-bird short for texas a&m-boeing interdisciplinary rocket design) roared into the sky in april from the west texas spaceport in pecos county the process is every bit as complicated as you might expect says project coordinator dr reza langari associate professor of mechanical engineering in texas a&ms look college of engineering who worked with dr tom pollock associate professor of aerospace engineering and dr jeff mcdougall lecturer in electrical engineering as the three faculty members overseeing the student teams and it didnt end with a successful launch; students still had to complete the projects final report for boeing ""rockets are not easy to build "" langari said ""this was a complex project and altogether the students put in a significant amount of work -- probably a total of at least 5 000 hours"" ten teams -- aerodynamics; documentation; guidance; navigation and control; launch site and launch support; manufacturing and assembly; payload; propulsion; recovery; structures; and test and evaluation -- spent last fall working out their designs and the details of manufacturing the parts of the rocket in december they presented their designs to a panel of boeing engineers and texas a&m faculty members with expertise in rocket design and construction the students designs had to meet the requirements of a request for proposal or rfp provided by boeing to meet boeings rfp the rocket had to weigh 30 pounds at liftoff carry a camera to a specific point 6 000 feet in the air deploy the camera return high-resolution images from 5 000 feet in the air in ""realtime "" and recover everything without damage the students spent the spring semester turning their designs into a rocket design and manufacturing challenges ranged from turning kevlar fabric and epoxy into the six-inch diameter by six-foot fuselage to designing and fabricating the complex shape of the solid fuel inside the engine altogether the students dealt with 50 vendors for items ranging from a digital altimeter to plywood for internal bulkheads and ripstop nylon for parachutes meeting the april deadline was a challenge langari said ""you want to focus on the content and at the end you realize management and scheduling are equally if not more important "" he said the students flew the rocket twice in mid-april from the west texas launch site the team drew on technical advice from david lund of the tees aerospace vehicle systems institute dr don ward of the aerospace engineering department dr terry creasy of the department of mechanical engineering and dr ken reinschmidt of the civil engineering department the team also benefited from lectures by dr clair nixon of texas a&ms mays business school and received valuable assistance from machinists in the aerospace and mechanical engineering departments"
"college station texas -- its more than a chemical bond for a husband-and-wife pair in the department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university dr perla balbuena and dr jorge seminario are two of the more than 100 new faculty members texas a&m engineering is hiring over the next five years under the universitys faculty reinvestment program hired in may the newly appointed tenured professors come with research interests in new power sources and the exciting field of nanotechnology dr kenneth r hall head of the chemical engineering department said the department welcomed the new professors with excitement ""i am delighted that we have been able to attract these outstanding researchers they are part of an overall effort to make our department the leader in computational chemical engineering "" hall said balbuenas research focuses on the prediction of physical and chemical properties of materials using atomic-level simulations she has contributed to an improved design of power sources such as lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells and to the development of new materials for catalytic processes balbuenas work with lithium-ion batteries used in laptop computers and cell phones involves introducing components that are less toxic and work more efficiently than those currently used her work with fuel cells called the power source of the future involves studying how reactions take place on the surface of the catalytic particles to improve the cells efficiency and cost seminarios research focuses on nanotechnology working on the analysis design and simulation of systems and materials of nanometer dimensions especially those for the development of molecular electronics the goal is to design smaller electronic devices and other materials in order to increase their efficiency speed and energy savings as well as reduce their costs seminario also holds a joint appointment in the department of electrical engineering while balbuena and seminario have separate research interests they take the time to discuss science every day and often work together the couple is currently collaborating on a four-year $540 000 grant from the us department of energy to investigate the development of catalysts for fuel cells and alternative methods to expensive and exhaustible platinum cells balbuena and seminario who met at a scientific conference in turkey 11 years ago and have been married seven years recently moved from the university of south carolina where they were associate professors balbuena and seminario said they were first drawn to texas a&m by the high quality of teaching and research as well as an environment that can bring fresh views to their research they were also excited about the new jack e brown chemical engineering building which is expected to be completed this month ""we are definitely looking forward to expanding our research towards exciting new frontiers; such expansion will be facilitated by the current and planned infrastructure and by the vision of texas a&m in addition we look forward to enjoying the beautiful new chemical engineering building and we are eager to learn about the aggie traditions and texas lore "" balbuena said balbuena holds a bachelors degree from the universidad tecnologica nacional in argentina a masters degree from the university of pennsylvania and a phd from the university of texas at austin all in chemical engineering she will be teaching applications of thermodynamics to chemical engineering starting this fall seminario holds a bachelors degree in electrical sciences from the universidad national de ingenieria in peru and masters in physics and phd in molecular science from southern illinois university he was licensed in electronics engineering by the national board of engineers of peru in 1980 and will be teaching process control this fall"
college station texas -- the society of petroleum engineers international (spe) of the american institute of mining metallurgical and petroleum engineers (aime) will honor texas a&m petroleum engineer dr john lee with the degolyer distinguished service medal in september lee is a professor and holder of the lf peterson chair in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university the degolyer medal is the societys highest award for service and recognizes distinguished and outstanding service to spe the professions of engineering and/or geology and to the petroleum industry lee has served in numerous positions within spe in more than 30 years of service including service on the board of directors from 1996 to 1999 he has also served the industry for more than 30 years as an spe continuing education instructor and has been visionary in seeing the application of distance learning technologies for both continuing education and degree programs in the industry lee came to texas a&m in 1977 after working for exxon since 1962 his expertise is in the areas of reservoir management gas reservoir engineering and pressure transient testing lee currently directs the departments outreach distance-learning and continuing education programs lee was designated an honorary member of aime and spe in 2001 the highest honor those societies bestow on members among his numerous additional honors are the spe/aime anthony f lucas gold medal in 2003 the top technical award in the societies; the spe reservoir engineering award in 1986; the spe john franklin carll award in 1995; and the spe distinguished faculty achievement award in 1982 he was elected to the national academy of engineering in 1993 and to the georgia institute of technologys inaugural class of distinguished engineering alumni in 1994 in 2001 lee was named to the texas society of professional engineers texas engineering (tspe) dream team a group of 18 professional engineers honored for their contributions to the engineering profession during the first 50 years of tspes existence lee holds bachelors masters and doctoral degrees from georgia tech all in chemical engineering
"college station texas -- dr stephen a holditch head of the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university and holder of the samuel roberts noble foundation chair has been named recipient of the 2005 anthony f lucas gold medal from the society of petroleum engineers international (spe) and the american institute of mining metallurgical and petroleum engineering (aime) the lucas medal is the societys highest award for technical contributions the lucas medal recognizes distinguished achievement in improving the technique and practice of finding and producing petroleum holditch will be recognized largely for his contributions to application of hydraulic fracturing in production of tight gas reservoirs dr john lee holder of the lf peterson chair in petroleum engineering said that holditchs work was truly groundbreaking ""he figured out how to transform theoretical ideas from the laboratory and the computer into field practice and was able to dramatically increase the supply of natural gas available to the united states and the world "" lee said holditch was a production engineer for shell oil co before joining the texas a&m petroleum engineering faculty in 1976 he also headed sa holditch & associates a petroleum engineering consulting firm from 1977 to 1999 the firm now called schlumberger data and consulting services provides consulting services for industrial and government clients around the world in geology geophysics petrophysics reservoir engineering production engineering and well completions widely recognized in the petroleum industry holditch is the author of more than 120 technical articles and has contributed to three textbooks he has made hundreds of presentations to industry groups on his technical specialties holditch was spe president in 2002 and spe vice-president of finance from 1998-2000 and served on the spe board of directors from 1998 to 2003 holditch was also on the aime board of trustees from 1997 to 1998 a registered professional engineer in texas holditch was elected to the national academy of engineering in 1995 and the russian academy of natural science in 1996 he has received numerous awards from spe including the spe distinguished award for petroleum engineering faculty in 1981 the lester c uren award in 1994 and the john franklin carll award in 1999 he was named an spe distinguished lecturer in 1982-83 and again in 1997-98 dr holditch was elected as an spe distinguished member in 1989 while at texas a&m holditch held the shell distinguished chair in petroleum engineering from 1983-87 and the rl adams endowed professorship in petroleum engineering in 1999 the american society of mechanical engineers petroleum division honored holditch for his significant contributions to the petroleum industry with the rhodes industry leadership (oil drop) award holditch also belongs to the american association of petroleum geologists the society of petroleum well log analysts and the society of petroleum evaluation engineers he holds bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in petroleum engineering all from texas a&m"
college station texas -- dr david m ford associate professor and holder of the kenneth r hall professorship in chemical engineering at texas a&m university has been chosen to participate in the national academy of engineerings (nae) 10th annual frontiers of engineering symposium sept 9-11 at the national academies arnold and mabel beckman center in irvine calif ford was one of the nations brightest young engineers selected to participate in the three-day event which will bring together engineers ages 30 to 45 from industry government and academia who are performing cutting-edge engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines the symposium will explore topics in multiscale modeling designer materials engineering for extreme environments and engineering and entertainment fords research focus is in understanding adsorption and transport in microporous materials such as zeolites carbon molecular sieves and polymers and extending that knowledge to the molecular design of optimal adsorbent materials for separation and reaction processes in the chemical industries ford holds a bachelors degree from the state university of new york at buffalo and masters and phd degrees from the university of pennsylvania all in chemical engineering
college station texas -- dr lihong wang holder of the royce e wisenbaker ii professorship in engineering and professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university has been named a fellow of the international society for optical engineering (spie) wang was among 33 new fellow members honored at a banquet aug 4 at the societys 49th annual meeting in denver colo fellows are members of distinction who have made significant scientific and technical contributions in the fields of optics photonics and imaging wang joins a prestigious list of more than 500 spie members so honored for their contribution to the discipline since the societys inception in 1955 in recognizing wang spie noted his key accomplishments including: the development of a simulation package mcml to model photon transport in biological tissue; a finding that polarization is a new contrast mechanism for imaging that can be used to diagnose disease and monitor therapy; and the development of ultrasound-modulated optical tomography rf thermoacoustic imaging and laser-induced photoacoustic tomography which can provide imaging modalities for early detection of cancers and save lives at texas a&m since 1996 wang directs the optical imaging laboratory in the department of biomedical engineering and has a joint appointment in the department of electrical engineering wang is a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers he is also a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering and the optical society of america spie is dedicated to advancing scientific research and engineering applications of optical photonic imaging and optoelectronic technologies through its meetings education programs and publications
"college station texas -- dr david v rosowsky has been named head of the department of civil engineering and holder of the ap and florence wiley chair in civil engineering at texas a&m university rosowsky comes to texas a&m engineering from oregon state university where he was professor and holder of the richardson chair in wood engineering he previously taught at clemson university from 1994 to 2000 and purdue university from 1990 to 1993 rosowskys specialization is in structural reliability and wood engineering -- specifically structural engineering and design for natural hazards; probabilistic modeling; reliability-based design; and performance-based design ""we are excited to welcome dr rosowsky to the helm of one of the largest civil engineering departments in the nation "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""dr rosowsky is an internationally recognized scholar and brings a valuable combination of theoretical and practical experience to the department he will serve our students faculty and college well and we are indeed fortunate to have him join our leadership team"" rosowsky has been active in the american society of civil engineers (asce) and the structural engineering institute having served on a number of committees and task groups he has been a member of the committee on safety of buildings and the committee on performance of structures and chaired the committee on reliability-based design of wood structures he is active in a number of standards committees and served most recently as a task group leader on loads and load combinations for the new asce standard on design loads during construction he also has served as associate editor for the journal of structural engineering and natural hazards review rosowsky also serves as united states or north american representative to a number of international organizations working in the fields of structural reliability and probability-based codes and standards among his honors and awards are the 1998 asce norman medal (for work with br ellingwood on load combinations) and the 2001 institution of civil engineers tk hsieh award (for work with ch juang and wk tang on liquefaction risk analysis) in 2001 he received the asce walter l huber civil engineering research prize for his work in probabilistic modeling of wood structures subject to wind and earthquake loading he was named inaugural holder of the richardson chair in wood engineering at oregon state in 2000 and honored with the clemson university board of trustees award for faculty excellence in 1998 and 1999 rosowsky holds bachelors and masters degrees from tufts university and a phd from johns hopkins university all in civil engineering"
"college station texas -- the tees texas center for applied technologys aircraft sustainability laboratory (asl) in san antonio has been named runner-up for the ergo cup in the training and education category of the 7th annual applied ergonomics conference asls entry ""instant replay "" highlighted method improvements projects in support of lean manufacturing initiatives at the corpus christi army depot (ccad) because combat helicopters must be ready for action reducing turnaround time for repair or scheduled maintenance is a sensitive issue within the us department of defense asls research which observed how the application of ergonomics could increase depot efficiency and prepare the helicopters for combat provided benefits in time savings increased productivity and ergonomic function ""our work at the corpus christi army depot supports the depots mission to overhaul repair modify retrofit test and modernize helicopters engines and components for all services and foreign military sales "" als manager dr john ayala said ""the combination of 28 full-time researchers faculty and students -- 24 on-site at ccad -- is a big part of our success"" the applied ergonomics conference lets practitioners learn the latest tools of the trade from professionals the ergo cup is a nationally recognized award sponsored annually by the ergonomics center of north carolina to recognize and encourage the development of innovative ergonomic solutions and education in the workplace entrants compete in one of three ergo cup categories: team-driven workplace solutions engineering and ergonomic-driven workplace solutions and training and education"
"college station texas -- texas a&m engineerings industrial assessment center has been named one of the top iacs in the country in a recent us department of energy ranking the center in the department of mechanical engineering in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m is headed by dr warren heffington associate professor of mechanical engineering the center also works with the energy systems laboratory in the texas engineering experiment station rankings are based on contract performance factors there are 26 other iacs around the united states and the texas a&m iac has been one of the top-ranked centers the past three years the center was named the first center of excellence in 2002 the texas a&m iac provides no-cost studies of manufacturing plants within about 150 miles of college station engineering students under the direction of mechanical engineering faculty and esl researchers analyze a plants energy waste and productivity issues heffington said two important goals of the contract are to deliver no-cost industrial assessment services to client manufacturers in the area and to educate students about energy conservation the center typically employs about a dozen undergraduate and graduate students each semester for clients the students identify energy conservation projects; gather data in plants including interviewing management and staff; calculate savings in terms of both energy and cost; provide conceptual designs and management techniques to capture the savings; analyze utility data; and write reports the students work in teams of five or six rotating leadership positions each time safety is always an important issue heffington said and each time one student is assigned as safety officer for the team as it works in a manufacturing plant ""the true strength of the iac is its student engineering employees "" heffington said ""the iac has been at texas a&m since 1986 and in that time about 200 aggies have made a significant contribution to its success some of those students have gone on to important leadership positions in industry and government we have helped 475 manufacturing plants save energy and reduce pollution and waste"" senior chemical engineering major cheryl keel has worked for the iac since summer 2002 she has been on more than 20 plant visits during this time serving as head report author several times and developing an electronic version of the centers report to reduce the amount of paper the iac uses in printing and mailing reports to plants keel said her work with the iac has given her research and problem-solving skills experience with multidisciplinary teamwork and exposure to a variety of manufacturing plants -- all valuable to her career ""work with the iac has given me an awareness of simple ways for all companies to save money in the form of energy savings waste savings and productivity savings that i can take with me to my future employment "" keel said ""it has also allowed me the opportunity to research savings opportunities specific to a company and provide the company with a possible solution these research skills are important to solving problems that may arise in my career"" the industrial assessment center program is a national program sponsored by the us department of energy and centers at universities around the nation provide similar services"
"college station texas -- texas a&m engineering will host tex-mems-vi sept 9 at the memorial student center on campus and will feature more than 80 presentations and posters this years conference ""mems and beyond: nanotechnology "" will feature keynote speakers dr mike reischman deputy assistant director of the national science foundations directorate of engineering and dr john evans with darpas microsystems technology office tex-mems aims to identify individuals in academia and industry with ongoing work and interest in mems (micro-electro-mechanical systems) and related technologies and to foster possible collaborations between these researchers the deadline for registration is monday (sept 6) the one-day workshop is sponsored by the texas a&m department of mechanical engineering the texas institute for intelligent bio-nano materials and structures for aerospace vehicles (tiims) the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and the tees spacecraft technology center for more information or to register visit http://tex-memstamuedu/"
college station texas -- dr dimitris c lagoudas professor in the department of aerospace engineering has been named the inaugural holder of the endowed john and bea slattery chair in aerospace engineering at texas a&m university a texas a&m faculty member since 1992 lagoudas also directs the texas institute for intelligent bio-nano materials and structures for aerospace vehicles (tiims) in the texas engineering experiment station he served as a texas a&m associate vice president for research from 2001 to 2004 and chaired the materials science and engineering program from 2001 to 2003 he was previously with the rensselaer polytechnic institute where he was an associate professor of civil engineering lagoudass research focuses on micromechanics of composite materials shape memory alloys nanocomposites and multifunctional materials and structures lagoudas was previously the ford motor co design professor ii he has also received the look colleges ruth and bill neely 52 dow chemical faculty fellow award the charles crawford service award and the lockheed excellence in engineering teaching award he is a tees senior research fellow and a university faculty fellow he is an associate fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics and a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers lagoudas conducted postdoctoral studies at cornell university and the max-planck institute in germany he received a doctoral degree from lehigh university in applied mathematics and a diploma in mechanical engineering from aristotle university of thessaloniki greece
"college station texas -- dr billy l and becky edge of college station have endowed a $25 000 scholarship at texas a&m university honoring one of the foremost experts in the field of coastal zone management the orville t magoon scholarship in coastal engineering will be awarded to united states residents who demonstrate interest in the field of coastal engineering magoon who lives in san francisco is president of the coastal zone foundation a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving management protection and use of coastal and ocean resources ""magoon has not only served as a leader in my field he has also served as my mentor for over 25 years we wish to acknowledge his contributions and friendship with a permanent contribution to coastal engineering education "" said edge bauer professor of dredging engineering and head of the coastal and ocean engineering division in texas a&ms civil engineering department magoon retired in 1983 as chief of the coastal engineering branch planning division us army corps of engineers south pacific division he continues to be an activist for coastal solutions and is a member of the advisory council of the california academy of sciences a native of honolulu he holds a bs from the university of hawaii and an ms from stanford university both in civil engineering he has served on various federal civil engineering committees and panels and is the author of numerous books and technical publications on coastal engineering he conceived and chaired seven major international specialty conferences on coastal zone management and coastal processes for 10 years magoon served as president of the american shore and beach preservation association (asbpa) most notable among his honors are the international coastal engineering award and john g moffat-frank e nichol harbor and coastal engineering award from the american society of civil engineers (asce); benchmark award national oceanic and atmospheric administration (noaa); and jim purpura national coastal engineering award florida shore and beach preservation association ""billy and becky edge know firsthand the students need for scholarships their gift is an especially appropriate way for them to honor mr magoons lifework in that it will help the next generation of coastal engineers achieve their goals "" said dr paul roschke interim department head for civil engineering edge is an international leader in research on offshore breakwaters and beach nourishment he holds bs and ms degrees in civil engineering from virginia polytechnic institute and a phd in civil engineering from georgia institute of technology prior to joining texas a&m in 1993 he worked extensively in the private sector and was a professor at clemson university he has served on the marine board national academy of engineering and as secretary for the asce rubble mound structures committee and the asce waterway port coastal and ocean divisions coastal engineering research council for 25 years edge was proceedings editor for the international conference on coastal engineering he has been co-director of the us army engineering waterways experiment station/texas a&m university graduate program he continues to serve as the senior civilian member of the coastal engineering research board for the corps of engineers becky edge a graduate of virginia polytechnic institute worked for many years with billy edge in the private sector before coming to texas a&m she is active in many associations and volunteer activities for the bryan-college station community including the university womans club philanthropic educational organization-chapter eq and bryan church pantry the edges gift is part of the one spirit one vision campaign the universitys multi-year fundraising effort aimed at helping texas a&m attain national top 10 status among public universities while sustaining the distinctive texas a&m spirit the volunteer-led campaign coordinated by the texas a&m foundation encompasses all private gifts benefiting the university"
"college station texas - a new medical imaging technique developed by texas a&m engineering biomedical researchers is another weapon for the arsenal in the fight against cancer laser-induced photoacoustic tomography (pat) is a noninvasive technology that combines optical waves and ultrasonic waves to create clearer images ""the two kinds of energy we are combining work together to allow for better contrast and resolution "" said pat developer dr lihong wang holder of the royce e wisenbaker ii professorship in engineering and professor of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university the pat technology will be applied to an integrated approach for diagnosing and treating cancer using a new class of nanomaterials - near-infrared-absorbing composite particles called nanoshells nanospectra biosciences inc is working with rice university the university of texas md anderson cancer center and texas a&m in developing the technique the houston company has received a $2 million award from the advanced technology program (atp) of the national institute of standards and technology to fund the work atp awards are made on the basis of rigorous competitive peer review and based on the potential for broad-based economic benefits and commercialization the initial focus will be to develop a diagnostic and therapeutic product for breast cancer said j donald payne president and ceo of nanospectra biosciences invented at rice university nanoshells are made of the biocompatible materials gold and silica (glass) theyre about 20 times smaller than red blood cells when injected in a patients bloodstream nanoshells will preferentially accumulate in tumors by leaking out of the tumors poorly developed blood vessels nanoshells absorb light at the near-infrared wavelengths that harmlessly penetrate body tissue when heated by a laser emitting near-infrared light they heat up enough to destroy nearby tumor cells without hurting healthy cells pat technology will be used to detect and pinpoint the tumors by locating where the nanoshells have concentrated at texas a&m since 1996 wang directs the optical imaging laboratory in the department of biomedical engineering and has a joint appointment in the department of electrical engineering wang is a fellow of the international society for optical engineering (spie) and a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers he is also a fellow of the american institute for medical and biological engineering and the optical society of america"
college station texas -- dr valerie e taylor professor and head of the department of computer science has been named holder of the royce e wisenbaker professorship i at texas a&m university taylor came to texas a&m in january 2003 from the electrical and computer engineering department at northwestern university where she had taught since 1991 her research interests are in the area of high-performance computing with particular emphasis on the performance analysis and modeling of parallel and distributed application she has published over 80 articles in this area among her honors are the 2003 mobe influencers and innovators of the internet and technology award; the 2002 young outstanding leader award from the university of california berkeley engineering alumni society; the 2002 cra a nico habermann award; 2001 hewlett packard harriet b rigas education award; and the 2001 pathbreaker award from the women in leadership at northwestern university in 1993 taylor received a national science foundation national young investigator award taylor chaired the grace hopper celebration of women in computing conference 2002 in vancouver canada and is past chair of the coalition to diversify computing she is a member of the nsf cise advisory committee the executive committee for the national computational science alliance and a member of the university of california berkeley college of engineering advisory board taylor received a bs in computer and electrical engineering in 1985 and an ms in electrical engineering in 1986 both from purdue university she received her phd in electrical engineering from the university of california berkeley in 1991
"college station texas -- space education pioneer dr helen l reed has been named professor and head of the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university reed comes to texas a&m engineering from arizona state university where she was professor associate director of the asu nasa space grant program director of the asu satellite lab and vice chair for graduate programs for the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering ""dr reeds achievements in building a research and education program for the nations next generation of aerospace engineers are impressive "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we look forward to her leadership as we meet the challenges of the exciting future of aerospace technology"" in 1993 reed instituted the asu student satellite program which has grown to include four satellite projects experiments aboard nasas kc-135 weightless-simulation aircraft and an award-winning team for a moon vehicle design-build-race competition ""i didnt know what to expect at the time but it was a brand-new way of education and it looked exciting "" reed said reed plans to continue these space education activities for texas a&m students she is program manager for mimic a national student satellite mission to mars that is aiming for launch around 2011 her research areas include nanosatellite design; satellite constellations and formation-flying technologies; boundary-layer transition and flow control; hypersonic and supersonic flow; micropropulsion/propulsion; computational fluid mechanics; low-chord-reynolds-number aerodynamics and micro aerial vehicles reed who had been as asu since 1985 has also held faculty positions at stanford university virginia polytechnic institute and state university and tohoku university (japan) she worked as an aerospace technologist at nasa-langley for five years after graduating from goucher college in 1977 with an ab in mathematics she received her masters degree and phd from virginia tech both in engineering mechanics reed is author or co-author of more than 30 papers and publications she has served on various nasa headquarters aeronautics advisory committees subcommittees and task forces; the federal laboratory review task force of the nasa advisory council; and the nato/agard (advisory group for aerospace research and development) fluid dynamics panel she is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers and the american physical society she is a member of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics fluid dynamics technical committee and is associate editor of aiaa journal reed is on the science advisory board of the national institute of aerospace and is deputy co-chair of the national space grant student satellite initiative steering committee she also is associate director for research for the nasa ureti institute of cell mimetic space exploration"
"college station texas -- technology leaders from across the nation will meet in college station dec 8-9 to discuss technical aspects of emergency preparedness the department of homeland securitys first national technical conference hosted at the annenberg presidential conference center will convene technical representatives from all states to look at preparedness needs and to present the best practices equipment and programs currently available for emergency responders ""texas a&m engineering is fortunate to be chosen to host this important national event that will help identify the future technology needs for the us department of homeland security "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""it clearly recognizes texas a&ms leadership in research and development"" one facet of the conference will be to address the evaluation of emergency response equipment relating to the technical needs of emergency responders texas a&m engineering has worked with dhs to develop an evaluation and verification program that will enable first responders to evaluate equipment and systems for their own use the program called saver or systems assessment and validation for emergency responders is just one of the many ways texas a&m engineering is tied to homeland security efforts the conference hosted at texas a&m by the dhs office of state and local government coordination and preparedness systems support division will bring together national leaders in anti-terrorism and emergency response technologies and share lessons learned about what works and why"
"college station texas -- texas a&m students will one day build and launch their own satellite if dr helen reed has anything to say about it reed who is the new head of the department of aerospace engineering plans to bring her student satellite program to texas a&m next spring she has already shepherded one student-built satellite launch while at arizona state university and she and her asu students will watch their second satellite as its launched into space on the back of a delta-4 rocket friday (dec 10) in cape canaveral fla ""i want to see an aggie-built aggie-launched satellite in space "" reed said ""aggiesat1 were going to do it"" reed said building the satellite is a highly multidisciplinary effort involving more than just engineering students ""building a small satellite is like running a small company "" she said ""besides engineers we need people to do data analysis business majors for marketing and cost-benefit analysis communications -- everything i want to make sure that every student on campus who wants to be involved is involved"" a space education pioneer reed instituted the asu student satellite program in 1993 three corner sat the satellite that will be launched friday is actually two satellites that work together the satellites are the result of a collaboration between students at asu the university of colorado at boulder and new mexico state university the project was entirely student-managed and student-run reed said the satellites weigh about 40 pounds are about the size of a microwave and look like a drum the two satellites will be testing software from the nasa jet propulsion laboratory that collects data and then makes decisions based on the data and operating conditions the satellites will also take images and perform a propulsion experiment in which water is a propellant ""we wanted to show that you can do meaningful things with small satellites "" reed said ""these satellites will have similar capabilities to larger satellites but in a smaller package"" reed joined the texas a&m engineering faculty dec 1 she taught her last class at asu the evening of dec 6 and flew to college station for a quick stay before jetting off to cape canaveral dec 8 reed will begin work on establishing her student satellite program at texas a&m in january she said she sees this as a tremendous opportunity for the local community texas a&m former students and industry to come together to support the students who will work on the project and to see this satellite program off the ground ""the launch is provided through nasa or the us air force but we encourage the community and industry to join in "" reed said ""we need everyone to get involved in this right on the satellite will be `aggie built aggie launched were going to see this happen"""
"college station texas -- dr cam nguyen professor of electrical engineering and holder of the ti professorship ii in analog engineering has been elected a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) for his contributions to microwave integrated circuits and systems nguyen who directs the departments sensing imaging and communications systems laboratory joined the texas a&m electrical engineering faculty in 1990 his current research interests include rf microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits and systems ultra-wideband components antennas and systems sensors subsurface sensing and mine and uxo detection and classification technologies nguyen has written one book several book chapters and more than 140 papers he is editor-in-chief of subsurface sensing technologies and applications: an international journal and editor of subsurface and surface sensing international book series as well as a member of the editorial board of ieee transactions on microwave theory and techniques among his honors are the tees fellow award and the 3m faculty fellow award both from texas a&m engineering nguyen received his bachelors degree from california polytechnic university his masters from california state university at northridge and his phd from the university of central florida all in electrical engineering nguyen is one of 18 faculty members in the department of electrical engineering at texas a&m to reach the rank of fellow a significant honor because the number of ieee members who may be advanced to fellow grade in one year is 010 percent of the total 320 000 institute membership ieee describes the honor as ""one of unusual professional distinction conferred only by the [ieee] board of directors upon a person of extraordinary qualifications and experience"" to be considered candidates must have made an outstanding contribution to the electrical and electronics profession"
"college station texas - the texas engineering experiment station has been awarded a $48 million nasa contract to design and develop equipment for current and future human spaceflight programs under johnson space centers crew robotics and vehicle equipment (crave) procurement tees will provide work in engineering design analysis prototyping and hardware development for human space exploration nasa announced the award jan 7 ""our selection for the crave contract ushers in a whole new era of collaboration between texas a&m engineering and nasas johnson space center "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we have a long history of working together to advance technology and research and we look forward to this expanded opportunity to serve the nations space program"" dr david c hyland tees deputy director and associate vice chancellor for engineering and dr ray askew tees distinguished research scientist led the texas a&m engineering effort to obtain the contract tees will administer and oversee the project which runs through december 2009 collaborating with tees on the project are muniz engineering inc starvision technologies independent design analyses inc dittmar associates anadarko industries geocontrol systems inc aero tech precision manufacturing inc az technologies inc and the university of colorados bioserv space technologies nasa awarded a total of four crave contracts the other recipients of a crave award are hamilton sundstrand services oceaneering space systems inc and the university of alabama at birmingham among the equipment nasa has targeted for the crave contracts are crew health and environmental systems extravehicular robotics equipment spacecraft flight crew equipment and environmental control systems"
"college station texas - dr gerard l cote an expert in biomedical optical sensing has been named head of the department of biomedical engineering at texas a&m university cote begins his new position with the department feb 1 succeeding dr william hyman who has served as interim department head since june 2002 ""in the next 10 years biotechnology will lead the advances in engineering science and medicine at texas a&m dr cote will play an important role in helping propel biomedical engineering into a position of prominence in this field "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering cote said ""as department head i recognize that i am in a position not only of leadership but most importantly of service as such i plan to work in collaboration with the faculty staff students and administrators of the department college and university to establish the department as a nationally recognized program while continuing its core mission: to serve students faculty and staff the state of texas and the biomedical engineering profession"" cote has been at texas a&m since 1991 starting as an assistant professor in the biomedical engineering program when it was housed in the department of industrial engineering he was named professor and associate head when the program became a separate department in 2002 he also holds the charles h and bettye barclay professorship in engineering his research interests include optical sensing and spectroscopy optical diagnostics biomedical imaging and development of noninvasive sensors he is director of the optical biosensing laboratory in the department where research focuses on developing biosensing and diagnostic systems using lasers fiberoptics and electronics for new noninvasive ways to test blood sugar levels in diabetes; to detect other body chemicals such as beta amyloid for alzheimers disease; and to diagnose cancer cote is a co-holder of three us patents and one provisional us patent and is author or co-author of more than 100 papers published or in press he is a fellow in the american institute for medical and biological engineering he received the juvenile diabetes research foundation internationals mary jane kugel award in 2002 for his service on the foundations medical science review committee the association of former students honored him with a 2002 distinguished achievement award in teaching and he was named the afs faculty fellow in the dwight look college of engineering in 2004 a tees senior fellow cote also was elected a fellow of the michael e debakey institute for comparative cardiovascular science and biomedical devices at texas a&m cote received his masters and phd in bioengineering from the university of connecticut storrs he has a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the rochester institute of technology"
"college station texas -- trespassers beware: texas a&m university engineers have developed a new system for detecting your presence dr henry taylor distinguished professor and holder of the irma runyon chair in electrical engineering and phd student juan carlos juarez are leading an effort to develop a fiber-optic intrusion-detection sensor for protecting long perimeters the teams sensor is commercial cable containing a fiber made of fused silica a type of glass thats specially doped to guide light the cable is buried eight to 20 inches underground along the monitored perimeter because the same type of cable is used in the telecommunications industry it is readily available and cheap -- about 15 cents a foot ""since the 9/11 terrorist attacks the demand for perimeter security systems has increased tremendously "" taylor said ""were projecting that this new type of distributed sensor will be able to monitor perimeters at about one-tenth the cost of other methods we envision application along national borders and for fixed installations such as airports nuclear plants and military bases"" the texas a&m university system holds a patent on the technology taylor and juarez have established a permanent test bed at the texas a&m riverside campus and have twice transported their system to the us marine corps air station in yuma ariz at the invitation of the defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) to conduct further tests in a desert environment using their novel system taylor and juarez have observed the effect of the pressure of someone walking directly over the cable and up to seven feet on either side they have also been able to detect cars driving hundreds of feet away from the cable and even helicopters flying overhead because seismic waves produced by cars and helicopters are picked up by the sensor in their scheme a light pulse from a specially designed ultra-stable laser is sent into the sensing fiber as the pulse advances along the fiber a phenomenon known as rayleigh backscattering causes some of the light to reverse its direction an optical receiver collects this backscattered light and converts it to an electrical signal which is then processed with a personal computer the system determines not only the presence of an intruder but his or her location along the cable as well in the yuma tests taylor and juarez demonstrated that their system works up to ranges of 19 kilometers and they believe that this can be extended to 40 kilometers or more taylor said its even feasible to cover the entire united states-mexico border or the united states-canada border from one location provided that optical amplifiers are used to boost the light signals with the sensor performing better than had ever been anticipated the researchers are now working on user-friendly software to project the location of disturbances on a map of the cable path and identify them as people vehicles or animals ""as far as we know the kinds of results were getting with the system have never been seen before by anyone "" said juarez ""its exciting to think that this sensor could soon be of benefit to society and our national interests"""
college station texas -- the board of regents of the texas a&m university system has named texas a&m engineerings dr dara w childs a regents professor for his service to texas a&m university the a&m system and the state of texas the board honored recipients of the regents service awards at its monthly meeting jan 27 at texas a&m childs is holder of the leland t jordan chair in mechanical engineering at texas a&m and director of the turbomachinery laboratory in the texas engineering experiment station childs research has changed the way engineers look at machinery particularly in regard to the previously underappreciated impact of seals impellers and other fluid-structure interaction forces his research has made major contributions to the improvement of the analysis and design of vibration of rotating machinery today the use of seals to favorably influence turbomachinery is common but prior to dr childs research in the mid-1970s it was simply not done under his leadership the turbomachinery laboratory has gained an international reputation and the laboratorys two major symposia are the meetings of choice for users and manufacturers of commercial turbomachinery childs is an innovative and dedicated teacher the junior-level course he developed on dynamics and vibration is a major departure from past practices and has been remarkably effective in preparing students for careers in engineering childs has been a long-time contributor to the american society of mechanical engineers and has served on multiple advisory committees for nasa and the us department of energy he is the author of 87 journal publications 13 papers in refereed conference transactions two books one book chapter and multiple conference papers the regents service awards honor professors and senior-level researchers and service delivery professionals who have provided exemplary service not only to their university or agency but also to the community the state the nation and the world eligibility requires a minimum of five years employment at an a&m system university or agency; a distinguished record of public service research teaching and creative or scholarly activity; recognition within his or her field; and a demonstrated commitment to his or her institution each recipient is given a $9 000 monetary award an a&m system medallion and a commemorative certificate
college station texas -- the board of regents of the texas a&m university system has named texas a&m engineerings dr don dickson a regents fellow for his service to the a&m system and the state of texas the board honored recipients of the regents service awards at its monthly meeting jan 27 at texas a&m university dickson is the executive director of the texas center for applied technology in the texas engineering experiment station he came to tees in 1994 to establish the center which expands the a&m systems research and technical expertise and establishes alliances with industry government agencies the military and other universities under his direction the center has grown from one employee to more than 75 and has brought in more than $125 million in research expenditures in fiscal year 2004 tcat has offices in fort hood corpus christi brooks city-base in san antonio and the department of homeland security dickson has had key roles in numerous innovative projects including the academic center for aging aircraft which was created in 2003 with three partner organizations to help the us department of defense develop test and implement new technologies for the maintenance and repair of older aircraft another called the saver (system assessment and validation for emergency responders) program develops and implements processes to test equipment used by emergency responders in collaboration with three other members of the a&m system and the us department of homeland security the regents service awards honor professors and senior-level researchers and service delivery professionals who have provided exemplary service not only to their university or agency but also to the community the state the nation and the world eligibility requires a minimum of five years employment at an a&m system university or agency; a distinguished record of public service research teaching and creative or scholarly activity; recognition within his or her field; and a demonstrated commitment to his or her institution each recipient is given a $9 000 stipend an a&m system medallion and a commemorative certificate
college station texas -- dr david claridge a professor in the department of mechanical engineering has been named holder of the leland t jordan professorship in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university a texas a&m faculty member since 1986 claridges research interests are in building commissioning analysis techniques for building energy data and heat transfer in buildings with more than 280 publications in these areas claridge is also associate director of the energy systems laboratory in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) before coming to texas a&m claridge was an associate professor of civil environmental and architectural engineering at the university of colorado he also worked for the solar energy research institute in golden colo and for the us congressional office of technology assessment claridge is a registered professional engineer in texas and a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he is also a member of the american society of heating refrigerating and air conditioning engineers (ashrae) and the american solar energy society (ases) and a past chair of asmes solar energy division claridge was named a congressional science fellow of the american association for the advancement of science in 1976 a tees fellow in 1997 and 1998 and a tees senior fellow in 1999 he has received the distinguished service award and the ek campbell award of merit from ashrae for his outstanding service and achievement in teaching he has won the best paper award on conservation and solar buildings from the asme solar energy division three times claridge was named holder of the dresser industries professorship at texas a&m in 1996 and holder of the ed brockett professorship for 2001-02 in 2000 he was named a northrup grumman fellow in the dwight look college of engineering he also received a graduate teaching award from the department of mechanical engineering in 1997 claridge holds a bachelors degree in engineering physics from walla walla college and a masters degree and a phd in physics from stanford university
"college station texas -- malcolm verdict associate director of the energy systems laboratory (esl) in the texas engineering experiment station has been nominated by texas gov rick perry to the western governors association clean and diversified energy act task force for energy efficiency the western governors association consists of 18 member states in 2004 california gov arnold schwarzenegger and new mexico gov bill richardson spearheaded an energy policy for western states that aims to reduce energy use by 20 percent by 2015 the new 25-member energy efficiency task force will meet three times and have six teleconferences between march and november to identify cost-effective programs and technologies that will be readily accepted in the market place to reduce overall energy use and help improve the environment verdict is one of two texans nominated to the task force ""it is an honor and privilege to use my 25 years of energy efficiency expertise at the state and federal level to help texas and our western neighbors identify realistic means for insuring sustainable efficient use of energy for future generations "" verdict said verdict said the clean and diversified energy policy initiative closely parallels the efforts of the texas energy policy planning council created by gov perry last year and chaired by victor carrillo chairman of the railroad commission to insure texas remains a national leader in energy resources education and technologies verdict joined the texas a&m university system in 2002 and works closely with federal state and local governments on energy efficiency and environmental policy issues representing the esl and its team of technical experts in energy efficiency technologies he received the state energy managers award in texas from the industrial energy technology conference in 1989 and served as deputy director of the texas state energy office in 1991 where he created the $98 million loanstar energy retrofit loan program helped craft the first energy demand side management program for regulated utilities in texas and implemented the states first energy-efficient building standards for state buildings from 1992 to 2001 verdict served as co-founder and chair of the national home energy rating council in washington dc which is composed of states builders energy raters federal agencies and mortgage lenders in 2001 he served as a representative of the energy efficiency and renewable energy communities on president george w bushs ""transition team"" for the us department of energy verdict holds a bachelor of science in math and engineering sciences from the us air force academy a masters degree in business administration from louisiana tech university and a commercial banking certificate from southern methodist university graduate school of banking he is also a certified energy manager holds a commercial pilot license and was a fighter pilot in vietnam"
"college station texas -- dignitaries from texas a&m university and the texas a&m university system as well as movers and shakers of the states petrochemical industry will be on hand tomorrow (april 22) at 11 am when texas a&m engineering dedicates its newest facility the jack e brown engineering building the seven-story 205 000-gross square-feet facility -- constructed at a cost of $38 million -- is located at the corner of university drive and spence street the structure opened to students in january and includes state-of-the-art laboratories classrooms seminar and conference rooms faculty offices and administrative headquarters for the newly named artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering ""this new facility will secure texas a&ms place at the forefront of chemical engineering teaching and research and on behalf of the entire university i thank mr and mrs brown for their generosity in helping to make this day possible "" texas a&m president robert gates said ""it is my hope that for many years to come those who work and learn here will see his name on this impressive building and be inspired by his dedication to his profession and his alma mater and his many contributions to the future of both"" lead donors frances and jack brown will be honored at the ceremony along with other founding contributors for their support of the new building a formal portrait of the browns which graces the first-floor lobby will be unveiled and each founding contributor will receive a personalized memento vice chancellor and dean of engineering g kemble bennett chemical engineering department head kenneth r hall and aiche student president michael l adams will join gates and erle nye vice chairman of the a&m system board of regents in honoring the buildings founding contributors ""jack e brown is a true texas success story and we are proud to recognize his contributions to the dwight look college of engineering by naming this incredible new building in his honor "" bennett said ""jack and frances brown embody the aggie spirit and through their generous support of texas a&m they are ensuring generations of future aggies receive a top-notch education in one of the finest facilities available"" the architecturally distinctive building has safety features that go beyond those customary for academic construction classrooms and computer laboratories are on the first floor and departmental offices as well as the tees mary kay oconnor process safety center are on the second the remaining five floors contain research laboratories that will handle approximately $5 million in research for 2004-05 these include a shared equipment laboratory for materials research and a floor of clean rooms in development is a supercomputer cluster which currently includes 100 apple g5 nodes (200 processors) and links to a similar setup at texas a&m-qatar to provide international supercomputing the department will continue adding g5 and other nodes in the future jack e brown class of 1946 holds degrees in petroleum engineering and mechanical engineering from texas a&m and is a principal in wagner and brown ltd one of texass largest independent oil and gas producers he and his wife frances are longtime supporters of texas a&m engineering their generosity to texas a&m includes the lead private gift toward construction of the jack e brown engineering building and numerous other endowments including the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering other founding contributors to the building included the late ernest a baetz jr class of 1947; ray b nesbitt class of 1955; t michael and olive e oconnor; and gene l tromblee class of 1970 also basf corp the dow chemical co fluor corp rohm and haas co and the shell oil co foundation building benefactors include bechtel foundation; michael j ginty class of 1979; robert h schas class of 1944; norman j tetlow class of 1966; and bruce warren established more than 50 years ago texas a&ms chemical engineering program emerged in the last quarter-century as a national leader for chemical engineering research now ranking in the top 10 nationwide based on annual expenditures its undergraduate and graduate programs are nationally ranked at 18th and 25th respectively the departments fall 2004 enrollment was 471 undergraduate and 131 graduate students texas a&m chemical engineering graduates are heavily recruited (887 interviews by 127 employers during the 2003-04 school year) by the petrochemical and refining sectors and a variety of other industries including semiconductor food processing and paper facilities named for brown building contributors"
"college station texas -- dignitaries from texas a&m university and the texas a&m university system as well as movers and shakers of the states petrochemical industry were on hand today when texas a&m engineering dedicated its newest facility the jack e brown engineering building the seven-story 205 000-gross square-feet facility -- constructed at a cost of $38 million -- is located at the corner of university drive and spence street the structure opened to students in january and includes state-of-the-art laboratories classrooms seminar and conference rooms faculty offices and administrative headquarters for the newly named artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering ""the field of chemical engineering is young established just over a century ago "" said erle nye vice-chairman of the board of regents of the a&m system ""the greatest accomplishments of the chemical engineering profession are yet to come texas a&m has always been near the forefront of these achievements and now thanks to the generosity of jack and frances brown our university can climb even higher in this critical area"" lead donors frances and jack brown were honored at the ceremony along with other founding contributors for their support of the new building a formal portrait of the browns which graces the first-floor lobby was unveiled and each founding contributor received a personalized memento in a surprise announcement the browns learned that their adult children had established the brown-ingram gallery on the second-floor mezzanine dr peggy brown ingram class of 1997 of the woodlands; van m brown of mystic conn; and patrick a brown class of 1980 of midland created the endowment so the entire family could be recognized as founding contributors to the jack e brown building a&m system chancellor robert mcteer jr vice chancellor and dean of engineering g kemble bennett chemical engineering department head kenneth r hall and aiche student chapter president michael l adams joined nye and texas a&m president robert m gates in honoring the buildings founding contributors ""this building surrounding us holds not only bricks and mortar but also the promise for solutions that will impact the lives of people across the globe "" bennett said ""because of the efforts of so many we are able to gather today to celebrate the completion of a premier facility that primarily benefits the students and faculty in our chemical engineering programs"" the architecturally distinctive building has safety features that go beyond those customary for academic construction classrooms and computer laboratories are on the first floor and departmental offices as well as the tees mary kay oconnor process safety center are on the second the remaining five floors contain research laboratories that will handle approximately $5 million in research for 2004-05 these include a shared equipment laboratory for materials research and a floor of clean rooms in development is a supercomputer cluster which currently includes 100 apple g5 nodes (200 processors) and links to a similar setup at texas a&m-qatar to provide international supercomputing the department will continue adding g5 and other nodes in the future hall said ""the opening of this structure collected under one roof all the departmental research previously spread among four buildings it provides an environment in which faculty and future engineers can model test and discover solutions to problems impacting the health and economic welfare of our state and nation on behalf of the faculty staff and students who work and study here i sincerely thank everyone who has worked and given to make the jack e brown engineering building a reality"" jack e brown class of 1946 holds degrees in petroleum engineering and mechanical engineering from texas a&m and is a principal in wagner and brown ltd one of texass largest independent oil and gas producers he and his wife frances are longtime supporters of texas a&m engineering their generosity to texas a&m includes the lead private gift toward construction of the jack e brown engineering building and numerous other endowments including the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering other founding contributors to the building include the late ernest a baetz jr class of 1947; ray b nesbitt class of 1955; t michael and olive e oconnor; and gene l tromblee class of 1970 also basf corp the dow chemical co fluor corp rohm and haas co and the shell oil co foundation building benefactors include bechtel foundation; michael j ginty class of 1979; robert h schas class of 1944; norman j tetlow class of 1966; and bruce warren established more than 50 years ago texas a&ms chemical engineering program emerged in the last quarter-century as a national leader for chemical engineering research now ranking in the top 10 nationwide based on annual expenditures its undergraduate and graduate programs are nationally ranked at 18th and 25th respectively the departments fall 2004 enrollment was 471 undergraduate and 131 graduate students texas a&m chemical engineering graduates are heavily recruited (887 interviews by 127 employers during the 2003-04 school year) by the petrochemical and refining sectors and a variety of other industries including semiconductor food processing and paper facilities named for brown building contributors"
college station texas -- dr georgia-ann klutke professor of industrial engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the institute of industrial engineers (iie) the fellow award is the highest classification of membership in iie and recognizes outstanding leaders of the profession that have made significant nationally recognized contributions to industrial engineering klutke whose expertise is in probabilistic operations research was recognized for her outstanding methodological contributions to queueing theory stochastic scheduling and maintenance science as well as her contributions to the industrial engineering practice klutke joined the texas a&m department of industrial engineering in 1995 and directs the institute for manufacturing systems she previously taught in the department of mechanical engineering at the university of texas at austin and in the department of industrial engineering and operations research at the university of massachusetts amherst and has served as program director for operations research and production systems at the national science foundation a registered professional engineer in texas klutke is also a member of the institute for operations research and the management sciences the association for women in mathematics and the american society of mechanical engineers she holds a bachelors degree in mathematics and a masters degree in biostatistics both from the university of michigan she holds a second masters degree in operations research from wayne state university and a phd in industrial engineering and operations research from virginia polytechnic institute and state university klutke is currently on developmental leave at the university of michigan in ann arbor
"college station texas -- texas a&m engineering has been awarded $2 million by the us department of homeland security to support an innovative first-of-its kind testing and evaluation program developed through the texas engineering experiment station (tees) ""the first responsibility of government is to protect our homeland "" said us representative chet edwards ""texas a&m is a national leader when it comes to homeland security research and training and this important funding is crucial for the safety of our citizens as an aggie it is a great privilege to work with texas a&m on vital programs that help ensure the security of americans"" the grant supports the system assessment and validation for emergency responders (saver) program developed by engineering faculty and researchers saver is designed to assist communities by providing impartial practitioner-relevant operationally-oriented assessments and validations on the performance of critical equipment which would be used in a mass casualty event ""the federal government is providing millions of dollars to jurisdictions nation-wide to enhance homeland security preparedness but there is no standard to determine which equipment is the best value for the investment "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we have developed non-biased assessments to put this equipment through tests under realistic conditions; a sort of consumer reports evaluation for emergency response equipment the results will help decision makers and responders better select procure use and maintain their equipment"" saver will evaluate personal protective equipment; explosive device mitigation and remediation equipment; search and rescue equipment; and information technology among other emergency response equipment ""through the engineering program at texas a&m we are making significant contributions to our nations homeland security "" bennett said ""the saver program adds a critically-important ingredient to our contributions: the valuable benefit of our researchers developing solutions to an unmet need truly we are engineering homeland security"""
"college station texas -- a texas a&m university computer scientists robotic research is for the birds really assistant professor dezhen song builds autonomous and teleoperated robots with which natural scientists -- and ordinary people like me and you -- will watch animals such as endangered birds and grizzly and polar bears ""you can watch animal planet "" he said ""but you dont have that same involvement (with the animals)"" song started his research with professor ken goldberg of the university of california berkeley this summer he and goldberg received $400 000 from the national science foundation to fund their research which they called collaborative observatories for natural environments the research is administered by the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system ""you have several elements behind collaborative: collaboration between experts and the general public and collaboration between humans and machines "" song said in other words natural scientists will work with robots -- song referred to them as observatories -- to teach us about animals the scientists will tell the robots which locations to watch and turn the robots loose at those locations song said he wants the robots to be ""automatic adapted"" ""drop the box there "" he said ""and it starts working"" to work the robots will need electricity which most locations lack song said wind will generate electricity for the robots climate-controlled domes digital video cameras and wireless networks the domes will cover the cameras to keep the cameras from weather song said the cameras which were donated by panasonic research and development are lightweight small and sparing in their use of electricity the cameras streaming video will travel via the wireless networks to the internet the scientists will watch the streaming video which will show animals at the locations on their computers we may watch the animals on our computers too meanwhile the robots will continue to watch the locations with no further instructions from the scientists song said they will work autonomously ""teleoperated means a human actually controls the robot "" he said ""autonomous means that it runs without human intervention"" the robots will not work autonomously all the time because the scientists will set them up and take them down song said he and goldberg with help from the us geological survey may set some robots up in alaska soon ""people can sit in their warm homes and watch polar bears "" he said"
"college station texas -- dr b don russell regents professor and holder of the jw runyon jr professorship in the department of electrical engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to a committee of the national research council of the national academies the committee on enhancing robustness and resilience of electrical transmission and distribution in the united states to terrorist attack is a joint committee of the national academies of science engineering and medicine and the department of homeland security the group will conduct an 18-month study of the vulnerability of the united statess power system to terrorist attack ""the idea is to determine ways we can make an attack on our power system less likely "" russell said ""more importantly we will consider how we can most quickly recover our power system after an attack"" russell said that the august 2003 blackout that left more than 50 million people in the united states and canada in the dark was debilitating enough but terrorists could deliberately wreak the same havoc -- and more -- by attacking the countrys power infrastructure ""if terrorists were planning another 9/11 and wanted to have maximum impact they could attack the power system at the same time which would wreak havoc with transportation and communications systems and with first responders "" russell said ""the electric power infrastructure in the united states wasnt built to be protected from an attack because we have never faced that we need to determine how to protect our system and how best to recover after an attack"" a world-renowned expert in electric power systems russell was chosen for the committee appointment because he is a member of the national academy of engineering and a past-president of the power engineering society of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers russell holds nine patents in protection and control systems for electrical systems and has directed the power systems automation laboratory at texas a&m for more than 25 years he was formerly associate vice chancellor for engineering of the texas a&m university system and deputy director of the texas engineering experiment station russell holds bachelors and masters degrees from texas a&m university and a phd from the university of oklahoma all in electrical engineering"
"college station texas - a texas a&m university civil engineer and student civil engineer spent their summer at kennedy space center in cape canaveral fla where they researched ways to decrease launch-pad debris that can collide with space shuttles during launches associate professor david trejo received the 2005 nasa summer research fellowship to fund his research on launch pads he took senior justin rutkowski with him to help with his research rutkowski also received a fellowship from nasa trejo said kennedy space center has problems with its launch pads one launch-pad problem is refractory material that fails when space shuttles launch during launch space shuttles rockets shoot exhaust and flames toward their launch pads the flames are directed into flame deflectors which are channels coated in calcium aluminate cement concrete calcium aluminate cement concrete is a refractory material like the polyurethane bedliners sprayed into truck beds ""that is a good analogy "" trejo said ""but the purpose is different the purpose of the refractory material is to protect the steel structure from the heat"" that is the refractory material is supposed to protect the steel from the heat hotter than 3 000 degrees fahrenheit the heat can cause the refractory material to fail and fragment from the flame deflectors the fragments become flying-object debris that can collide with launch-pad structures and space shuttles ""under these conditions "" trejo said ""these structures need constant maintenance"" he said he and rutkowski want to learn how and when to repair the refractory material rutkowski said they want to replace the refractory material too ""the research will answer the question is there a better refractory material that can be used at the launch pads"" he said ""this is important to the safety of the launch of the shuttle and over time (it) should also decrease the amount of money spent on repairing the launch pads after every launch"" rutkowski helped trejo research the refractory material and steel under the refractory material before and after discovery launched on july 26 trejo said many fragments failed when the space shuttle launched the fragments did not collide with discovery fuel-tank foam did fail and fragment from an external fuel tank the fuel-tank foam failure caused nasa to change atlantis launch from september 2005 to march 2006 trejo and rutkowski had wanted to set sensors on a launch pad when the space shuttle was scheduled to launch in september ""unless nasa cancels all hope for future launches our research will continue "" trejo said ""everyone here is disappointed however we can look at it as an opportunity to implement our program and make launches safer"" his and rutkowskis research was administered by the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas -- an initiative aimed at getting more people to travel via private plane for longer trips is gaining momentum thanks to the us congress nasa and in part texas a&m aerospace engineering associate professor dr john valasek valasek is director of the department of aerospace engineerings flight simulation laboratory and led a team of texas a&m engineering aerospace engineering and computer science researchers to develop and evaluate algorithms software and displays that use artificial intelligence to help pilots of small private aircraft safely use airports without air-traffic control towers and radar (called non-controlled airports) in near all-weather conditions the research was part of the small aircraft transportation system (sats) a five-year research program funded by congress and administered by nasa langley research center six sats labs around the country each contributed to the project which seeks to enable a safe travel alternative to driving; open up access to the many airports in small communities thereby reducing congestion at major airports; and invigorate the general aviation industry valasek said that only 22 percent of the population of the united states lives within 30 minutes of a major hub airport such as chicago ohare international airport or the dallas/fort worth international airport while 41 percent live within 30 minutes of a regional airport such as bryan-college stations easterwood airport but 93 percent of the people in the united states live near a sats-type airport a figure that demonstrates the potential these airports have for general aviation and air travel ""our motivation is to get people thinking about general aviation as an alternative to other types of transportation for longer trips including commercial flights "" valasek said ""we want to make this affordable convenient and safe enough to get you away from your car for medium-to-long trips"" to that end the texas a&m team developed algorithms software and displays to help those piloting small aircraft maintain situational awareness in the approach and landing pattern the most challenging portions of a flight the group applied artificial intelligence (ai) techniques to cockpit displays and pilot aids ai is used here to assist with decision making in the cockpit and to anticipate problems before they occur valasek said and the flight segment identifier is the realization of this approach the flight segment identifier looks at pilot actions and current flight conditions to infer what the pilot is attempting to do and decides whether the pilot is conforming to procedures and operating within proper airspace corridors it does not control the airplane although it could the pilot always has full authority in this system ""lets say youre flying along and just like a car slowly drifting from side to side in a lane your altitude gradually drops "" valasek said ""is this because youre not holding your assigned altitude very well or because you are starting a descent in a different situation if youre flying very fast and close to the ground with your landing gear up are you attempting a landing and simply forgot to lower the landing gear or are you in fact just flying close to the ground the flight segment identifier evaluates the available information and asks `in my judgment you are performing this particular action is this what you intended to do the pilot can then accept this judgment and use it to make a decision and take corrective action or disregard it and continue with the original action"" the systems virtual instructor pilot makes sure that all procedures are being adhered to and indicates whether or not a pilot is following a reasonable sequence of flight segments it displays both procedural information -- ""this is the segment you should be in"" -- and state information -- ""this is the segment you are operating in"" -- with concise text messages to the pilot exactly what is displayed depends on whether the procedural and state-based results match or at least follow a reasonable progression ""under normal operating conditions messages are displayed to the pilot in green "" valasek said ""but if a mismatch occurs between what you should be doing and what you are actually doing the message changes color to yellow to alert the pilot to take appropriate action"" a bonus feature of this approach is the ability to determine who is flying an airplane over time the system learns the characteristics of particular pilots that fly that aircraft potentially if an unauthorized person -- or a terrorist -- takes over the stick the system knows that an authorized pilot is not flying and can take appropriate measures such as go into a holding pattern or alert authorities valaseks texas a&m team consisted of 13 undergraduate and graduate aerospace engineering and computer science students computer science graduate student steve wollkind and undergraduate students arnold binas and carol tsai were essential in developing a synthetic traffic display called the multi-agent intelligent distributed airspace simulation (midas) so that pilots evaluating the technologies would experience a simulated real-life situation of the air traffic environment aerospace engineering phd candidate jie rong was the lead graduate student on the project coordinating the work between the texas a&m team and the rti international team for the cockpit display called rti view his dissertation as well as that of phd candidate martin dings was based on the sats project undergraduate aerospace engineering major and certified flight instructor kyle helbing used the project as his engineering scholars program research and then entered his work in the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics (aiaa) region iv student paper conference where he won second place helbing assisted phd candidate james doebbler in creating a sats capable multi-pilot simulation facility in texas a&ms bright building and then designed the approach plates and scenarios used to evaluate the system with phd candidate theresa spaeth who performed the human factors and pilot workload evaluations besides helbing graduate students tom wagner paul gesting and celine kluzer and undergraduate students zach reeder and carolina restrepo served as evaluation pilots ""here at texas a&m we conducted one of the very first piloted simulation evaluations of the sats self-controlled airport concept "" valasek said ""we had multiple pilots `flying simultaneously in congested airspace around a self-controlled airport focusing on collision avoidance using advanced cockpit displays and real-time human factors such as pilot workload and situational awareness it was a complete success and nicely demonstrated the sats high volume operations concept"" helbing added ""with the advanced aviation technology now available an almost endless supply of information is available in the cockpit the trick is supplying the pilot with just the right amount of information at the instant they need it and our talented group of research pilots helped us in making those determinations"" the texas a&m researchers were part of the north carolina and upper great plans sats team lead by rti international and focused on the ""high volume operations"" aspect of the program working closely with the texas a&m team was a group from blue rock r&d a company formed by texas a&m electrical engineering graduate dr wallace kelly kelly earned his phd in electrical engineering in 1997 and his dissertation ""hypertrapezoidal fuzzy membership functions for decision aiding "" formed the starting point for both the texas a&m and blue rock teams work kelly is the co-holder of a patent for hypertrapezoidal fuzzy membership function along with his phd committee chair retired electrical engineering and aerospace engineering professor dr john painter kelly also hired painter as a consultant to assist on the project with blue rock r&d the culmination of the five-year program was a public technology demonstration by all six sats labs for nasa and congress in june in danville va ""perhaps the best aspect of this program for us was the flight demonstration "" valasek said ""the vast majority of aviation research never makes it to the flight stage to see our work selected and then implemented for flight after all those months of development and testing was very rewarding it gave us the theory-computation-experiment closure that all researchers seek"" valasek said that the general public will not be the only ones to benefit from sats ""studies conducted by nasa using the sats approach have shown that business travelers stand to benefit a great deal too particularly those who travel regularly to medium- and smaller-sized cities not served by hub or spoke airports in fact at least one company is looking into being a kind of sats air taxi service for the business traveler"""
"college station texas - modeling and simulation software used to help train emergency responders may become more gamelike said dr james a wall director of the computing and information technology division in the texas center for applied technology (tcat) the applied research arm of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) ""thats where a lot of interest is now "" he said ""how can we use games"" wall helps define requirements for modeling and simulation software as a member of the modeling and simulation technical working group in the national institute of justice (nij) the research arm of the us department of justice this fall nij will give the simulation software ""incident commander "" for which wall was a resource to emergency responders ""incident commander"" depicts crises such as hurricanes and terrorism so emergency responders can test their reactions to the crises a simulation developed by breakaway games it is like a video game he said at tcat wall has helped develop eotcsim a simulation software to help train emergency responders that looks like the video game ""simcity"" whereas ""simcity"" is for single players wall said eotcsim an acronym for emergency operations training center simulation is for team players eotcsim helps train emergency responders such as firefighters and police officers at the enhanced incident management/unified command course (enhanced im/uc) taught by the national emergency response and rescue training center of the texas engineering extension service (teex) ""they (teex) are the domain experts "" he said ""we are the technology experts"" in the course 40 emergency responders are split into teams that react to terroristic crises depicted by eotcsim emergency responders at an enhanced im/uc on aug 10 reacted to an automobile crash that escalated to bioterrorism all of which were depicted by eotcsim: * an automobile crashed into a telephone pole that crashed into an attic and sparked a fire the emergency responders sent firefighters to the attic icons on their computer screens drove toward the attic * firefighters found two corpses who had died of pneumonic plague in an apartment beneath the attic the emergency responders sent police officers and public health officials to quarantine two blocks on all sides of the apartment a circle was drawn on their computer screens to represent the quarantine * police officers suspected an apocalyptic alabamian caused the automobile crash to spread pneumonic plague the emergency responders sat in front of their computer screens and asked one another if they should send for the fbi wall said eotcsim depicts terroristic crises more realistically than other simulation software that helps train emergency responders it is ""simulation for stimulation"" that results in ""virtual veterans"" who have reacted to terroristic crises in real time ""with simulation you get appropriate feedback about the quality of your decision "" he said ""therefore it is more meaningful"" in addition to eotcsim tcat has either developed or been involved in the development of modeling and simulation software for nij as well as the us air force and us army as the states engineering research agency and as a member of the texas a&m university system tees provides practical solutions to critical needs from its headquarters in college station and its 15 regional divisions tees identifies and studies areas critical to the states economic development and quality of life researches and promotes new technologies helps communities strengthen science and technology education investigates problems that affect health and the environment and fosters partnerships between academia and industry"
dr lee peddicord vice chancellor for research and federal relations for the texas a&m university system and professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university will be the featured speaker at the sept 13 issues forum at the george bush presidential library and museum peddicord came to texas a&m university in 1983 where he has served as chair of the nuclear engineering department interim dean and director of the texas engineering experiment station he has been with the chancellors office since 1993 peddicord a registered professional engineer in texas has been active in the field of nuclear energy for 35 years his interests are in advanced nuclear fuels international nuclear safety advanced reactor systems and nuclear engineering education at the issues forum peddicord will discuss the future of nuclear power the bush museum issues forum strives to present leading experts in their respective fields the forum also provides a vehicle in which the local community can be engaged in discussion concerning topics and issues that face our nation in the past the museum issues forum has addressed a wide variety of topics including terrorism lbj central europe and the role of intelligence in national security the issues forum will begin at 7 pm at the bush complex there is no cost to attend but reservations are recommended for more information or to make reservations call amanda urrutia at 979/691-4015 the museum at the george bush presidential library hours are monday through saturday from 9:30 am to 5 pm and sundays from noon to 5 pm museum admission is $7 for adults $5 for senior citizens 62 and over and active retired military with id as well as groups of 20 or more with advance reservations; and $2 for children six and older texas a&m and blinn college students as well as children under six enter free for this and other events be sure to check out the museums web site
"college station texas -- vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr g kemble bennett has appointed dr walter w buchanan head of the department of engineering technology and industrial distribution and inaugural holder of the jr thompson department head chair in engineering technology and industrial distribution at texas a&m university buchanan succeeds former department head dr richard m alexander ""dr richard alexander has shaped one of the top programs in the nation and being able to attract someone of dr walter buchanans stature and reputation is a true testament to his efforts "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we are extremely fortunate to have dr buchanan join texas a&m engineering"" buchanan comes to the dwight look college of engineering from northeastern university where he was professor and director of the school of engineering technology he was previously professor and dean of engineering and industrial technologies at the oregon institute of technology; associate professor and chair of engineering technology and industrial studies at middle tennessee state university; assistant professor and coordinator of the electrical engineering technology associate degree program at the university of central florida; and an assistant professor of electrical engineering technology at indiana university-purdue university indianapolis he has also been an electronics engineer for the naval avionics center; an engineering officer for the us navy; an aerospace engineer for boeing co and martin co as well as an attorney for the veterans administration in indianapolis a registered professional engineer in florida indiana massachusetts oregon and tennessee buchanan is a fellow of the american society for engineering education (asee) and a senior member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) and the society of manufacturing engineers (sme) he is a member of the national society of professional engineers (nspe) the executive committee of the technology accreditation commission (tac) of the accreditation board for engineering and technology (abet) the order of the engineer and the engineering and science hall of fame buchanan is also a member of the indiana state bar among his numerous honors are the asee james h mcgraw award the asee frederick j berger award the international conference on engineering and computer education award and the nspe outstanding service award buchanan has authored or co-authored 113 publications he holds a bachelors degree a jd and a phd from indiana university and bachelors and masters degrees from purdue university"
"college station texas -- vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr g kemble bennett has appointed dr costas n georghiades head of the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university georghiades professor and holder of the delbert a whitaker chair in electrical engineering succeeds dr chanan singh who led the department for eight years ""with enormous passion dr chanan singh has built a strong program over the past eight years and there is not a better candidate than dr georghiades to maintain and enhance the excellence of the electrical and computer engineering department "" bennett said ""dr georghiades not only possesses an engaging leadership style but is well respected among our faculty and students he will be an excellent representative of the engineering program"" georghiades joined the dwight look college of engineering faculty in 1985 as an assistant professor in the department of electrical engineering his general research interests are in the application of information communication and estimation theories to the study of communications systems he leads the departments telecommunications and signal processing group and is co-director of the vlsi-telecommunications research center a registered professional engineer in texas georghiades is a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) he previously held the jw runyon jr professorship in electrical engineering at texas a&m as well as the halliburton professorship and the ed brockett professorship from the look college over the years he served in editorial positions with the ieee transactions on communications the ieee transactions on information theory the ieee journal on selected areas in communications and the ieee communications letters he has been involved in organizing a number of conferences including recently as technical program chair for the 2005 ieee communication theory workshop and as general chair of the 2004 information theory workshop he currently serves as chair of the ieee communication societys communication theory technical committee and in various committees of the ieee communications and information theory societies georghiades holds a bachelors degree from the american university of beirut and masters and doctoral degrees from washington university"
mexico city - texas a&m university today opened its digital imaging diabetes research center in mexico city aimed at screening mexican citizens for forms of diabetes especially retinopathy which can cause blindness a delegation headed by texas a&m university system regent lupe fraga; david prior executive vice president and provost; and richard ewing vice president for research helped open the facility located on the first floor of a building in the heart of mexico citys business district and near texas a&ms mexico city center established by texas a&m in 1993 to enhance educational opportunities with mexico the space for the research center was donated by pablo marvin a 1966 texas a&m graduate and real estate developer it is the only facility of its kind in mexico the new lab will help detect diabetes a growing health problem in mexico one form of the disease is retinopathy which occurs when diabetes damages the blood vessels inside the retina early detection and laser treatment of diabetic retinopathy is crucial in preventing blindness at the digital imaging diabetes research center an exam to detect the disease can be performed quickly is painless and usually does not require drug administration the new lab is based on four years of continual research conducted in the computer science department at texas a&m with clinical trials being carried out in texas and saltillo coahuila and supported by several funding agencies among them texas a&m and conacyt (consejo nacional de ciencia y tecnologia) the premier scientific agency in mexico and a major research partner with texas a&m
college station texas -- dr paul cizmas associate professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has been appointed to an aerospace propulsion committee of the national research council of the national academies the committee is jointly sponsored by the office of the air force for science technology and engineering and the us department of defense office of the director of defense research and engineering committee members are conducting an 18-month study examining the department of defenses future propulsion needs and the current commercial propulsion technical base to determine whether efforts underway in laboratories and industry will support necessary war-fighting capabilities over the next 15 years the committee will make recommendations that could affect the department of defenses propulsion development planning in the future cizmas came to texas a&m in 1998 from westinghouse science and technology center where he had been a senior engineer since 1995 cizmas previously worked as a design engineer for the turbomecanica jet engine co and as research engineer and later an assistant professor at the bucharest polytechnic institute his research interests are in the areas of propulsion; unsteady aerodynamics and heat transfer; computational fluid dynamics; fluid-solid interaction; and massive parallel processing he is also a researcher in the aerospace engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the states engineering research agency and a member of the texas a&m university system cizmas is an associate fellow of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics he holds an undergraduate degree in aerospace engineering from the bucharest polytechnic institute and a phd in mechanical engineering and materials science from duke university
"state of the college address g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering good afternoon! it seems that just as we became accustomed to fewer pedestrians bravely crossing campus streets along oddly unpredictable paths¿enjoyed shorter lines at restaurantsand never had to sit through more than one cycle at the stop light¿ theyre back! and this semester the students are back in big numbers among the 44 661 aggies on campus this semester 8 857 of them are engineering students -- roughly one-fifth of the entire campus population we have seen increases in all classifications with 6 787 undergraduate students and 2 070 graduate students our freshman class is the largest one in five years with 1 739 up 218 students from last year we also have 51 engineering students displaced by hurricane katrina enrolled in classes most coming from tulane university in addition to the 8 857 student engineers on campus we also have two departments with new identities the department of industrial engineering is now the department of industrial and systems engineering and the department of electrical engineering has been renamed the department of electrical and computer engineering computer engineering however will remain a degree option in both computer science and electrical and computer engineering based upon those impressive numbers it is indeed my pleasure to welcome you to our annual fall meeting the beginning of the academic year is a good time to pause and consider the state of our college and discuss where we are going and how we will get there together as you know vision 2020 outlines 12 imperatives that texas a&m university must focus on to obtain a ""culture of excellence"" president gates identified three of these imperatives as highest priority added one of his own and requested campus-wide support of this effort these imperatives are: • elevating the faculty • pursuing diversity in both student and faculty recruits • expanding the built environment on campus • enhancing undergraduate and graduate education i am pleased to report that we have made significant gains over the past year in our support of all these initiatives without question the faculty reinvestment program is one of the most ambitious and exciting undertakings of its kind other universities are conducting large faculty hiring drives but none are adding 112 new engineering positions we are now half way through the reinvestment program and i am proud to report that we have done an outstanding job recruiting 49 new faculty members across all ranks and in most disciplines additionally we have filled 28 vacant positions bringing our total tenured/tenure track faculty hires to 77 today the look college has 439 faculty members and 364 of them are tenured/tenure track reversing a decade-long trend of diminishing numbers where we lost 32 positions clearly we are growing¿and growing quickly but that is not to say we are growing uncontrollably as we fill the reinvestment positions we are not only pursuing the best candidates in the growing fields of technology but also making sure the candidate pool is a mix of diverse populations our efforts to enhance faculty diversity have been successful in terms of both gender and ethnicity among our newly-hired faculty starting this fall almost half are from underrepresented populations and 36 percent are female next year the third year of the four year reinvestment program we will hire 31 new faculty members and in the fall of 2007 we will add 32 more these numbers may sound overwhelming and i assure you it has been and will continue to be a vigorous exercise in recruitment but it is extremely important we must fill each allotted position this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build for the future of engineering at texas a&m university and we must seize it to support our continued recruitment activity i asked engineering communications to conduct research on our new faculty and students to determine what brought them to texas a&m engineering and to use this information to craft recruiting materials that highlight our strengths and show prospective faculty and students why they should join our program i am pleased to report that the materials engineering communications developed are simply superb because i believe this recruitment phase is so important for our future i am making a significant investment in these materials now so that they will be available to the departments and their search committees this fall although the faculty reinvestment is a unique opportunity i fully recognize that our past and current faculty deserve the credit for bringing our college to where it is today i thank them and each of you and i truly appreciate your commitment to our faculty recruitment process although grueling in some respects we must continue our unwavering commitment to recruit the best and brightest minds to join our ranks they and you will define our future i am not alone in recognizing the high quality of our faculty: this has been another impressive year where countless prestigious awards honors and designations have been bestowed upon our ranks i am also very pleased at the level of external support we have garnered from our many benefactors through our renewed focus on development activities engineering continues to receive the largest number of endowments in the university with 43 chairs and 74 professorships while our distinguished faculty members are rewarded through our many endowments we are also committed to supporting the integrated career development and teaching activities of our junior faculty through specialized assistance programs like our nsf career award workshops we can help build a strong start in their academic careers these are our up-and-coming academic leaders and our support of them will pay huge dividends for us all i am pleased to report that in just the past two years eight of our new faculty members have received career awards and one of those eight dr mike bevan of chemical engineering was chosen for the highest honor bestowed upon young engineers and scientists: the pecase which is awarded by the president of the united states finally all faculty benefit from association with a stable respected program we remain strong and competitive among our peers one indicator-albeit not a terribly scientific one-was recently made public in the us news and world report undergraduate rankings i do not like to put too much emphasis on these rankings as they are not a true measure of quality however many do use the rankings to promote their programs and it would be foolish not to ensure our numbers remain strong i am pleased to report that the look college rose two places to #14 overall remaining eighth among public institutions congratulations to you all! few things add more to the experience of discovery than a perspective different than our own this is the very heart of our second priority endeavor - campus diversity as a major public university texas a&m must create and maintain an atmosphere that affirms diversity of people and viewpoints together with president gates i am committed to supporting the wide array of characteristics that enhance life and learning the look college does not tolerate bias by race ethnicity national origin gender age socioeconomic background religion sexual orientation or disability we have worked very hard over the past two years to increase the diversity of our students through an aggressive recruitment program which has added enrichment in a multitude of ways and we will continue to focus upon these efforts deans and department heads make personal phone calls to prospective students and faculty and staff answer questions in real-time aggie chat-rooms even our students are engaged in this activity: they serve as sounding boards tour guides and gracious campus hosts the commitment and participation in our student recruiting efforts run from top to bottom in this college and that is why were succeeding reversing a seven-year trend minority freshman enrollment university-wide is up significantly this fall with major double-digit gains reported for african-american and hispanic students however of all the colleges engineering made the most notable improvement by increasing the number of african-american students by 92 percent we also increased the number of hispanic students by 29 percent and while the university as a whole experienced a 2 percent drop in female students we continue to improve attracting 26 percent more females this semester than last fall i commend all who have done so much to strengthen our recruitment activities as we create an environment that supports a more diverse student body we cannot overlook the importance of the enhanced diversity of our new faculty hires our students look to their educators as role models we live in a multicultural world and you our faculty lead by example we need to ensure our students are seeing a culture that is rich with different genders ethnicities and beliefs when we talk about diversity we often overlook a very important group: first-generation college students twenty-eight percent of the entering freshman class at a&m are the first in their families to go to college university-wide 2 300 scholarships have gone to socioeconomically-disadvantaged students and more than half of those have been awarded to individuals in ethnically underrepresented groups we have more than 250 of these first-generation students in our college all students deserve our support but these first-generation college students especially do their success will pave the road to a better life for them and their families for generations to come the third area of emphasis is the built environment: enhancing the building space and facilities we have and carefully expanding where we can without question the faculty reinvestment program will change the landscape of texas a&m-literally and figuratively the look college received the greatest number of reinvestment positions but along with that comes the growing pains of accommodating 112 new faculty and their research there is simply not enough space; there was not enough space even before the first new hire stepped on campus for the past two years i have worked closely with the council on built environment and i assure you that our needs-greater than all of the other colleges combined-are well known by all and i am pleased to inform you that we are making tremendous progress toward addressing this pressing need by conservative estimates the college of engineering needs 350 000 square feet of space to accommodate current and future space needs associated with the faculty reinvestment program slowly but surely we are finding and acquiring this much-needed space first i looked at current use and relocated personnel one-hundred-thirty tees staff members have been moved off campus to a building off greens prairie road this opened 28 000 square feet of space for faculty on campus we have also reconfigured offices and labs on campus to maximize the use of our space and these efforts will increase and intensify officially opening the jack e brown engineering building provided 205 000 square feet of very attractive classrooms labs and faculty offices but it does not solve the overwhelming 350 000 square foot need this building was planned and built before we embarked on our reinvestment program it did however open up space in the zachry building where the departmental space shuffle is almost finished affirming our enormous need for space president gates has announced that engineering will be the primary occupant of the new emerging technologies building two-thirds of the building will be assigned to engineering and the remaining one-third will be assigned to other colleges who must partner with us i will have a strong hand in deciding who will join us in this facility the $50 million building is expected to be built in the next three years we owe president gates our gratitude for securing the resources to make this facility possible although many locations have been suggested the site for the building has not been decided as to the new life sciences building securing space in that facility has been a struggle while we know engineering plays a major role in biotechnology that fact was lost on our science colleagues who planned the facility so participation by the look college was completely overlooked i have worked very hard to ensure our rightful place in that new facility and while no specific space has been identified as ours i am now a participating dean in the project designed for multi-disciplinary use engineering researchers who collaborate with other colleges in life sciences may find opportunities and space there the breakthroughs in our understanding of the life sciences have been remarkable but as i point out to all it will be the engineers who translate this knowledge to the public good we will be acquiring an additional 13 500 square feet of space in the civil /tti tower and 26 000 square feet in the reed mcdonald building both should occur this year as a large private gift is supporting construction of two new physics buildings engineering will eventually gain another approximately 35 000 square feet vacated by physics-related construction exactly when we will acquire this space is unknown although space has been one of my most-challenging concerns i am pleased with the status of our current space expansion plan i believe it will provide breathing room for the next two or three years during which time we will actively seek more room to accommodate our growth and sustain our research program even with all of this additional space we will still need one more $50 million engineering building and i will actively seek private funding to build it although i have spoken much about the faculty reinvestment program of texas a&m and its significance to our future our final imperative is the most important: our students we have been working to reduce class sizes and the large addition of new faculty is already having an impact on the number of courses we can offer and reducing the average number of students per faculty member currently that ratio is 20:1 although recruitment is a priority retaining our students is one of the biggest issues we have to address the latest numbers show that we lose 53 percent of our students by their junior year they do not leave the university; they just leave engineering and the majority of these students are fully capable of attaining an engineering degree we are analyzing this trend and implementing ways to better assist our students i am determined to do something about this we must do a better job of retention! if an industry lost 53 percent of its product it would go out of business! one initiative showing great promise toward increasing retention is the nsf steps program designed to increase the comprehension of first year students in mathematics and physics courses steps offers a hands-on curriculum and laboratory experience as students participating in steps learn physics and mathematics principles they are immediately applying them in engr 101 and 102 this semester 471 students are enrolled in five sections of steps engr101 another new initiative to better serve the needs of our students is a collaborative effort with the mays business school: a summertime business management certificate program the intensive program includes basic business principles and operations thirty-nine engineering students participated in the highly successful inaugural section as i talk with our industry partners they continue to tell me that although we are seeing a shift toward the out-sourcing of engineering jobs to other countries it is the us educated engineer who will lead international engineering teams this new program will give students who choose to participate a ""leg-up"" in that market and bring international understanding to that old aggie truism ""what do you call an aggie five years after graduation-boss!"" as a research i university we possess the faculty expertise research infrastructure and resources to provide undergraduate students opportunities for research experiences although the university is now moving aggressively toward inquiry and research based learning models for undergraduate students it is something we have been making available to our students for some time this summer 39 undergraduate students (one-third of them women) were brought to our campus to experience academic research activities and hopefully ignite the same passion we all share for discovery and to spark a desire to pursue a graduate degree: preferably here at texas a&m as the profession of engineering becomes increasingly global developing strategic relationships with international partners will add value for our students and our research our students must understand cultures different than our own so we have formed many new international partnerships with peer institutions currently we have memorandums of agreement with 35 institutions in 22 different countries we are placing a special emphasis on building relationships with programs in china south america india europe and qatar where we have a campus in its third year of operation in addition to the renewed emphasis on international moas our study abroad programs continue to grow this past june our largest group of engineering students yet- 44 in all-traveled to germany next summer we will offer study abroad programs in brazil germany panama singapore and spain studying abroad is no longer a luxury for our students; it is becoming a necessity our industry partners continue to stress the importance of a global perspective in our graduates we will continue to find ways to make these opportunities accessible for our students while we are pursuing the best and brightest among a diverse pool of students we must not overlook the importance of keeping them once they enroll as i stated earlier 53 percent of our students leave us and graduate through other colleges within the university certainly there are many factors contributing to this number and lowering our standards is not an acceptable retention option however finding innovative ways to support student success is essential we have expanded the pool of faculty advisors and mentors in order to provide more personalized support and encouragement we continue to offer learning communities where clusters of students provide supportive environments the ""aggie step"" program-which is similar in name but not related to the physics and math steps program i described earlier-brought 200 incoming freshmen onto campus for two weeks this summer to experience a realistic ""dry run"" at college life including classes meetings with mentors living in the dorms and making new friends the majority of these students came from underrepresented populations or were first-generation college students we are making considerable efforts to retain students but it is not enough we must do more we must have our best teachers engaged in lower division classes and we must make an extra effort to help our students succeed and finally to enhance the student experience we must carefully cultivate growth we have set ideal targets and have created deliberate plans to manage this growth by fall 2007 our undergraduate student enrollment should top off at 7 600 and the graduate population should grow to 2 400 further if this nation is to remain competitive with the much-larger pools of engineers educated in other countries we must actively recruit more domestic students into our undergraduate and graduate programs and provide them with leadership opportunities american engineers must possess something that sets them apart from the others: i would like that special something to be an engineering degree from texas a&m for public universities in texas appropriations from the state provide just one-third of their total budgets so private support is needed to enhance quality texas a&m initiated the one spirit one vision campaign to raise private gifts in support of the goals set out in vision 2020 this campaign will quadruple a&ms private endowment from $700 million to $3 billion by 2020 engineering has experienced unprecedented success in its fundraising this year we are still confirming but the $40 million our development officers raised last year may be the highest amount ever raised by a public engineering college during the campaign we have added many new endowments including 12 chairs 26 professorships 7 graduate fellowships and more than 50 scholarships through the generous giving of our former students we also are welcoming two newly named departments this fall: the zachry department of civil engineering and the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering so what are the challenges that lie ahead this semester the 15-hour course load begins the states flagship universities are experiencing increasing pressure from the texas legislature to provide greater access to higher education and to have undergraduate students complete their educations in four years it is too early to determine the long-term impact of this measure but the trend for professional degrees such as engineering has been for our students to take more than four years to graduate this is not only due to the demanding and challenging coursework but also to the value-added experiences that our students are known for: real-world experience through internships and co-ops study abroad extracurricular project teams and participation in leadership organizations making higher education available to more students is the right thing to do; balancing the need to shorten the time it takes to get through the degree program while not discouraging the valuable ""extra"" opportunities outside the classroom will be a challenge another challenge will be our fiscal constraints the dollar is being squeezed tighter than ever and we must operate as responsibly as possible we have been hit with many unexpected expenses: for instance the university utility bill is $20 million higher than the university projected and we have been assessed our share of that payment while we have streamlined and made our organization lean we must continue to find ways to reduce costs i urge you to practice energy conservation we also must remain aggressive as we conduct our faculty searches and do so with more vigor than ever before to strengthen that effort i have asked a group of senior faculty to discuss cross-cutting technologies where we have or want to build strength i am holding back 12 faculty reinvestment positions along with three chairs and three professorships to attract outstanding candidates these candidates must be involved in cross-college/cross-university research candidates with successful records of commercialization could tap into the governors funding for start-up packages i want to ""think big"" about ideal candidates and ask you to do so as well i believe that to remain competitive we must focus our research support and faculty efforts on multi-disciplinary academic and research areas where we have demonstrated strengths the fields of energy materials informatics robotics and autonomous controls are good examples through the reinvestment program we have increased our faculty expertise in the underpinning technologies of ""nano-bio-info""; it is now time to harness this knowledge to work in cross-disciplinary teams we also must raise our faculty profile we must continue to support faculty nominations for national and international awards and for appointments to key national boards and committees that shape policy and drive federal resources another area critical to our success is the active participation of our faculty in college planning to better harness the collective wisdom of our faculty i am creating three governance councils to serve as a think tank on three specific priorities: undergraduate student enhancement graduate student enhancement and research councils will be made up of a diverse group including two full professors two associate professors two assistant professors two department heads one efac member one faculty senate member a student representative and a designated administrator who will serve as the ""ex officio"" liaison with the deans office council members will serve a two-year term and will discuss issues and make recommendations for action to the dean i will announce the membership of these councils soon a big part of my job is analyzing data i see a lot of it but one statistic caught my eye i was fascinated to discover that 28 percent of entering freshmen this year are first-generation college students this statistic caught my attention because it reminded me of young man who came from a family of little means whose father worked in a sawmill and mother took in sewing to make ends meet a family of many aunts uncles and cousins who never had the opportunity to attend college a family that wanted their son to have the opportunity for an education they never had well one day that young man enrolled in college he was unsure of himself when he arrived on campus and was not sure he even belonged there but a professor took interest in him and convinced him that not only did he belong but that he could be successful that professor became his role model the young man gained confidence in himself and became the first in his family to graduate from college he even went back for two additional degrees became a professor and ultimately the vice chancellor and dean of engineering at texas a&m he stands before you today as proof that one faculty member can change a life as you leave think of our students: their energy and enthusiasm their promise and potential commit to finding one who needs a role model like you i would like to sincerely thank each of you for your contributions to texas a&m engineering and wish you a productive successful and memorable fall semester"
college station texas - vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr g kemble bennett has appointed dr luis san andrã©s inaugural holder of the mast-childs professorship in mechanical engineering at texas a&m university san andrã©s joined the texas a&m department of mechanical engineering in 1990 as an assistant professor he was previously a principal professor at escuela politã©cnical nacional in quito ecuador san andrã©s became a full professor at texas a&m in 2000 and led the systems and controls division for the mechanical engineering department from 2001 to 2004 san andrã©s holds a bachelor’s degree from escuela politã©cnica nacional a master’s degree from the university of pittsburgh and a phd from texas a&m all in mechanical engineering his research interests are in the analysis design and testing of fluid film bearings and gas bearings and seals for oil-free turbomachinery; rotordynamics of turbomachinery; structural vibrations; and computational mechanics san andrã©s is a fellow of the society of tribologists and lubrication engineers (stle) and a member of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) and the american society for engineering education (asee) he is presently chairman of the structures and dynamics committee of the asme international gas turbine institute and a member of the executive committee of the asme tribology division he has received the outstanding graduate teaching award from the department of mechanical engineering and the dresser industries professorship the ed brocket professorship the plank co faculty fellowship and the ruth and william neely’52 faculty fellowship all from the dwight look college of engineering san andrã©s is a member of texas a&m’s mexican-american us latino faculty association (malfa) and a past secretary and vice president of the professional hispanic network (phn) the organization of american states (oas) recognized his contributions with a latin-american applied science award the mast-childs professorship in mechanical engineering was established in 2005 by mildred and charles a mast a retired amoco executive and texas a&m class of 1951 mechanical engineering graduate mast is a distinguished alumnus of the department and a longtime member of its advisory council the endowment also honors dr dara childs a texas a&m regents professor in the department of mechanical engineering and director of the texas engineering experiment station’s turbomachinery laboratory san andres appointed inaugural holder of mast-childs professorship 2005-10-14t00:00:00 0
"college station texas -- dr ozden ochoa a professor in the department of mechanical engineering and associate dean of graduate studies at texas a&m university has received the award in composites from the american society for composites ochoa who will start her two-year term as president of the society in january is the 10th recipient of the award which recognizes a ""distinguished member of the composites community who has made a significant impact on the development of composite materials through applied research practice education service advocacy or leadership"" ochoa received the award at the societys 20th annual technical meeting in philadelphia in september ochoa is currently serving as the director of aerospace sciences and materials directorate at us air force office of scientific research in arlington va prior to moving to afosr ochoa was actively conducting research and establishing focus areas in composites as senior technologist at the materials and manufacturing technical directorate at wright patterson afb in ohio from 2003 to 2005 ochoa came to texas a&m in 1980 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering her contributions in the past two decades are in a broad range of mechanics of composite materials and structures with applications in the aerospace offshore automotive and construction industries her research focus is on integrating computational and experimental mechanics to address material and structural characterization of fiber-reinforced polymer and ceramic matrix composites and more recently with high-temperature carbon foams ochoa led the mechanics of materials program of the us air force office of scientific research from 1997 to 1999 she is a consultant for the nato science for peace project advising and enabling a team of scientists from belarus canada russia and the ukraine in successfully conducting and disseminating their research efforts on high-temperature ceramics as the leading principal investigator on a national institute of standards and technology -- advanced technology program grant for the texas engineering experiment stations offshore technology research center she is credited with seeing through the development of the first composite drilling riser ochoa is a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers and the american society for composites and is a member of the pi tau sigma sigma xi and phi kappa phi she is a member of the us national committee on theoretical and applied mechanics and serves on the executive committee of the international conference for composite materials among her many honors are the asme dedicated service award two consecutive conoco cea awards the texas a&m university international excellence award and the texas a&m university honors program teacher/scholar award in 1997 ochoa was named to the texas a&m mechanical engineering academy of distinguished graduates and in 2003 she received the dean wr woolrich ""engineer of the year"" award from the south texas section of asme ochoa was recognized in 2003 as a texas a&m dwight look college of engineering fellow ochoa holds a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from bogazici university (robert college) in turkey and a masters degree in nuclear engineering and a phd in mechanical engineering both from texas a&m"
"texas a&m university distinguished professor of physics dr marlan o scully has been honored by the american physical society (aps) with the 2005 arthur l schawlow prize in laser science scully is cited ""for his many far-reaching contributions to quantum optics and quantum electronics and in particular for the quantum theory of lasers for the theory of free-electron lasers and laser gyros and for theoretical and experimental contributions to optical coherence effects"" scully was presented the award in conjunction with the optical society of americas (osa) 89th annual meeting ""frontiers in optics 2005"" held in tucson ariz established by the aps with an endowment from the nec corporation in 1991 the prize is named in honor of 1981 nobel prize-winning physicist arthur l schawlow for his pioneering work in lasers it is awarded annually in recognition of outstanding contributions to basic research that uses lasers to advance our knowledge of the fundamental physical properties of materials and their interaction with light the prize consists of $10 000 and a certificate plus an allowance for travel to the meeting a member of the national academy of sciences academe europa and the max-planck society scully is associate dean for external relations in the college of science he holds the hershel e burgess 29 chair in physics and a distinguished research chair with the texas engineering experiment station and has multiple appointments at texas a&m as distinguished professor of physics as well as a professor in the departments of electrical engineering and chemical engineering he also serves as director of both the institute for quantum studies and the center for theoretical physics within the college of science scully who also is a professor at princeton has held faculty positions at yale university the massachusetts institute of technology the university of arizona the university of new mexico and the max-planck-institut fr quantenopik a world renowned pioneer in quantum and laser physics he has brought distinction to texas a&m by leading the way to many scientific breakthroughs such as slowing the speed of light to the snail-like pace of 10 miles per hour making revolutionary lasers without population inversion and showing how quantum mechanics can yield a class of novel quantum heat engines a highly decorated researcher and scholar scully has received numerous professional honors including the adolph e lomb medal and charles h townes award from the optical society of america the quantum electronics award from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers inc the cresson medal from the franklin institute and the alexander von humboldt distinguished faculty prize he has been an alfred p sloan fellow a guggenheim fellow and is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science as well as the aps and osa scully who joined the texas a&m faculty in 1992 received his master of science and phd degrees in physics from yale university he is a distinguished alumnus of the university of wyoming where he received his bachelors degree in engineering physics"
college station texas -- dr yu ding assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering has been named a 2005-2006 montague center for teaching excellence scholar for the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university the cte scholars program was designed to recognize tenure-track assistant professors who have already demonstrated successful teaching and to encourage further development of teaching excellence ding whose primary teaching area is quality control has contributed to both curriculum development and student development in the department he mentors undergraduates graduate students and other teachers; and his students place him well above average in their evaluations this award recognizes dings teaching accomplishments and potential and includes a $5 000 grant to support innovative teaching projects ding joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2001 and won a prestigious national science foundation career award in 2004 for his research on quality improvement using distributed sensor networks ding holds a bs in precision engineering from the university of science and technology of china an ms in precision instruments from tsinghua university in beijing an ms in mechanical engineering from penn state and a phd in mechanical engineering from the university of michigan
"college station texas -- dr malcolm verdict associate director of the energy systems laboratory (esl) with the texas engineering experiment station has been named the energy manager of the year by the association of energy engineers (aee) the award is granted annually to an energy engineer who has exhibited outstanding leadership and skills in energy management; outstanding accomplishments in promoting the practices and principles of energy management and development; and superior service to the association of energy engineers verdict was recently recognized in austin with this prestigious award ""it is especially humbling and gratifying to be recognized by ones peers in a field that i have devoted my professional career to for the past 27 years "" verdict said ""the efficient use of energy has never been more important than it is today to our nations energy security our local environment our everyday cost of living and to our own campus here at texas a&m university"" verdict joined the esl team in 2002 and works closely with federal state and local governments on energy efficiency and environmental policy issues representing the esl and its team of technical experts in promoting energy efficiency practices and techniques before such groups as the western governors association which appointed him to its clean and diversified energy task force earlier this year verdict received the state energy managers award in texas from the industrial energy technology conference in 1989 he was deputy director of the texas state energy office in 1991 where he created the $98 million loanstar energy retrofit loan program helped craft the first energy demand side management program for regulated utilities in texas and implemented the states first energy-efficient building standards for state buildings from 1992 to 2001 verdict was a senior program manager for a prestigious advocacy group the alliance to save energy in washington dc while at the alliance he served as co-founder and chair of the national home energy rating council in washington dc which was composed of states builders energy raters federal agencies and mortgage lenders in 2001 he served as a representative of the energy efficiency and renewable energy communities on president george w bushs ""transition team"" for the us department of energy verdict holds a bachelor of science in math and engineering sciences from the us air force academy a masters degree in business administration from louisiana tech university and a commercial banking certificate from southern methodist university graduate school of banking he is also a certified energy manager holder of a commercial pilot license and served as a fighter pilot in vietnam the association of energy engineers is an international organization celebrating its 29th year of successful energy leadership president george w bush praised the efforts of the organization at the 28th world energy engineering congress ""i appreciate the aee members and [the] commitment to promoting energy efficiency in this country as we move into the 21st century your efforts help to protect our environment and improve the quality of life for everyone "" bush said"
austin -- four members of the computing and information technology division of the texas center for applied technology have been recognized by the us armys central technical support facility (ctsf) located at fort hood texas for outstanding work in designing developing and implementing the configuration management quality assurance (cmqa) tool tcats joe gonzalez keith biggers jeff kiertscher and archana thiagarajan were awarded certificates of appreciation and distinctive coins representing the ctsf tcat is a part of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system the tcat-developed software has become the configuration management tool at the ctsf which is responsible for software certification and integration testing for the army battle command system the software is also being adopted by the us armys program executive office for simulation training and instrumentation in orlando fla for use in its digital integration facility it was developed as part of the university xxi program which partners researchers from texas a&m university tees and university of texas at austin in support of army transformation and digitization focused at fort hood the presentations were made during the university xxi in-progress review held at the university of texas at austin in october making the presentations for the army was langston carter of the ctsf also present were dr jim wall director of the tcat computing and information technology division and dr don dickson tcat director
"college station texas - a texas a&m university mechanical engineer has won a macro award for micro research assistant professor daejong kim has won the american society of mechanical engineers-tribology divisions innovative research award for his research on micro gas bearings kim shares the award with two mechanical engineers who advised him when he was a doctoral student: professor michael d bryant and professor emeritus frederick f ling from the university of texas-austin the tribology divisions innovative research award is given to mechanical engineers whose research has resulted in noteworthy or novel technologies that have furthered tribology the science of friction and lubrication between mechanisms that are in relative motion: for example bearings and gears through his research kim has strengthened micro gas bearings by coating them in diamond-like tungsten hydrocarbon these submillimeter micro gas bearings had been fabricated by the micromachining technology liga the acronym for the german translations of x-ray lithography electroplating and molding ""the main purpose of the coating is to design surfaces with low friction and high resistance "" he said micro gas bearings - several times smaller than dimes - can support micromachines such as microactuators micromotors and microturbines kim said these micromachines can move inside more macro machines for example the defense advanced research project agency (darpa) strives to engineer micro air vehicles that have wingspans shorter than 6 inches micro air vehicles are toylike airplanes that can pilot themselves their most promising power and propulsion systems are micro gas turbines that include micro gas bearings he said ""surely this technology is beneficial to defense and homeland security areas "" kim said his most recent research concerns meso - between micro and macro - gas bearings that are softer but stabler than the micro gas bearings he had earlier researched he said ""soft-walled"" meso gas bearings can support gadgets such as dentists drills micro hard drives and micro laser scanners and micromachines such as high-speed rotors microturbines and micro turbo generators the texas engineering experiment station (tees) administers this research ""i feel more obliged to do more innovative research "" kim said ""even though my work was innovative i feel a duty to continue"" kim came to the texas a&m department of mechanical engineering in 2004 after he earned his doctorate from ut austin he earned a bachelors and masters from seoul (korea) national university"
"college station texas -- james bond may use the fanciest most expensive and high-tech devices to thwart would-be eavesdroppers but in a pinch the super-spy can use one texas a&m engineers simple low-cost scheme to keep data secure from the bad guys dr laszlo kish an associate professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m proposed that a simple pair of resistors on the ends of a communications wire such as a phone or computer line could keep eavesdroppers from intercepting secret messages added electronic disturbances (called ""noise"") or the natural thermal noise (called johnson noise) produced by the resistors makes the scheme function and keep the message secret kishs paper ""totally secure classical communication utilizing johnson(-like) noise and kirchoffs law "" in which he proposes his communications scheme has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of the journal physics letters a (a preprint of the paper is available online at http://wwwarxivorg/abs/physics/0509136) the paper was also featured in a recent issue of science (vol 309 p 2148 2005) kish said that quantum encryption -- communicating with single quantum particles where one particle carries a single bit of information -- is considered absolutely secure because any eavesdropper will be discovered by the extra noise the eavesdropper introduces into the communication channel as soon as the eavesdropper tries to extract ""noisy"" information or bits from the channel but kish said quantum encryption is very fragile and is limited by expense vibrations thermal gradients maintenance needs speed and distance instead kish has proposed a classical not quantum encryption scheme that relies on classical physical properties -- current and voltage he said his scheme is absolutely secure fast robust inexpensive and maintenance-free and relies on simultaneous encrypting of information by both the sender and the receiver picture a line of communication -- the line connecting two telephones or computers the sender and receiver at each end of the communication line each have two resistors of different resistance each randomly connects a resistor between their ends of the wire and ground and then the sender begins transmitting the message using the natural thermal noise produced by the resistors provides stealth making the communication difficult to discover while the line of communication is open both the sender and receiver monitor the electrical current and voltage in the line if both the sender and receiver use the larger resistances the fluctuations or johnson noise in the voltage will be large while the fluctuations will be small if both use the smaller resistances if one uses the larger and the other uses the smaller resistance the fluctuations will be somewhere in between of course an eavesdropper can also measure this noise but this intermediate level produced by a pair of large and small resistors provides secure communications kish said because the sender and receiver use different resistances the eavesdropper cannot determine the actual location of the resistors or whether its the sender or the receiver using the large resistance the only way an eavesdropper can determine which resistance is being used at which end is to inject current into the communication channel and measure the voltage and current changes in different directions doing this though exposes the eavesdropper who is discovered with the very first bit of information extracted and when an eavesdropper is uncovered the sender or receiver immediately terminates the transmission of the message before the spy can extract any more information ""the way the eavesdropper gets discovered is that both the sender and the receiver are continuously measuring the current and comparing the data "" kish said ""if the current values are different at the two sides that means that the eavesdropper has broken the code of a single bit thus the communication has to be terminated immediately"" kish said that the dogma so far has been that only quantum communication can be absolutely secure and that about $1 billion is spent annually on quantum communication research ""but my paper proves that classical communication measuring voltage and current can also be secure if we are doing that wisely and it can be done much more cheaply and more easily than quantum communication "" kish said ""and its superior to quantum communication because the eavesdropper has to break a few thousands of bits to get discovered in quantum communication in my scheme the eavesdropper can extract only a single bit before getting discovered"" kish directs the fluctuation and noise exploitation laboratory in the electrical and computer engineering department and is also a researcher in the electrical and computer engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system tees administers kishs research"
"kingsville texas - texas a&m university-kingsville and the texas engineering experiment station have received almost $1 million from the national science foundation for a major student recruitment and retention program at the university the five-year project ""tamuk step: a model for student success and persistence "" aims to provide access to science engineering and mathematics degrees for the predominantly hispanic population of the south texas region served by texas a&m-kingsville and to increase the availability of a trained technical workforce for the state primarily by focusing on six south texas community partners: del mar college coastal bend college palo alto college san antonio college st phillips college southwest junior college and south texas community college ""this is excellent news that allows us to expand recruitment efforts conduct educational research and partner with community colleges to build a pathway to four-year degrees in engineering mathematics and science "" said texas a&m-kingsville president rumaldo z juárez the award was jointly developed by engineering and science faculty at texas a&m-kingsville regional community colleges and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the fiscal agent for this project will be tees the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor for engineering of the a&m system said ""this is a great example of how tees fulfills its statewide mission of creating partnerships that secure federal dollars for texas to support our work in engineering and science through partnerships like this one with tamu-kingsville $1 million in federal funding comes to texas allowing our brightest researchers to engineer a better future the citizens of texas ultimately benefit most"" the number of hispanics earning bachelors degrees in engineering in 2002-2003 remained flat from 1999-2002 while the hispanic population of the united states rose to 13 percent in addition hispanic students have been shown to be less likely than any other group to leave their home region for education or careers putting hispanic serving institutions like a&m-kingsville in a strong position to meet educational needs with research showing that first-generation and underrepresented students are predisposed to begin their higher education at community colleges tamuk step will partner with five regional community colleges like del mar to keep students moving ahead to degree completion in science engineering and math disciplines it is anticipated that the tamuk step program will affect 1 200 students over five years with more than 55 percent of those students to be hispanic principal investigator dr kuruvilla john associate professor of environmental engineering and associate dean of the frank h dotterweich college of engineering at a&m-kingsville said that the project will attempt to accomplish several key objectives through innovative approaches such as establishing peer advisers programs at community colleges; initiating faculty learning groups to develop recruitment and retention strategies; enhancing a foundational course at the freshmen level; and providing research experiences at the undergraduate and community college levels additionally science engineering and mathematics student chapters and engineering professionals will mentor tamuk step students in conjunction with tamuk step is a redesign of the universitys introductory course in engineering that will allow freshmen students to get a taste of all the disciplines more hands-on lab and research experience in the past students received their research experience in their senior year the tamuk step project management includes texas a&m-kingsville engineering and science faculty dr ali pilehvari dr hector estrada and dr daniel j suson and dr blanca ""rosie"" garcia of del mar college texas a&m-kingsville and del mar college are both tees regional divisions with $10 million in funded projects from the national science foundation that were developed through tees"
savannah ga -- dr daniel f jennings a professor in the industrial distribution program at texas a&m university joined an elite group when he was inducted into the national academy of arbitrators (naa) at the academys 2005 meeting in savannah ga jennings is director of the department of engineering technology and industrial distributions executive master of industrial distribution program and a researcher in the engineering technology and industrial distribution division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system jennings joined the dwight look college of engineering faculty in 1997 as a professor he was previously was the mays professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management at baylor university jenningss research interests are in the areas of managing profitability strategic alliances environmental scanning knowledge management and matching strategy and structure his industry experience includes working in profit center responsibility for manufacturing and distribution firms of forest products and chemicals in the united states canada and south america a registered professional engineer in texas jennings holds a bachelors degree in industrial engineering from the university of tennessee an mba from northeast louisiana university and a phd from texas a&m the national academy of arbitrators is a non-profit professional and honorary organization that aims to establish and foster the highest standards of integrity competence honor and character among those engaged in the arbitration of labor-management disputes on a professional basis; to secure the acceptance of and adherence to the code of professional responsibility for arbitrators of labor-management disputes; to promote the study and understanding of arbitration of labor-management and employment disputes; and to encourage friendly association among the members of the profession and cooperate with other organizations institutions and learned societies interested in labor-management and employment relations while approximately 5 500 individuals have been certified by either the american arbitration association or the federal mediation and conciliation service to practice labor contract dispute arbitration in the united states membership in the national academy is now 540 members thus less than 10 percent of the certified labor contract dispute arbitrators are members of the national academy of arbitrators
washington dc -- president george w bush has appointed dr john w poston sr professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university to the advisory board on radiation and worker health the advisory board on radiation and worker health was established in october 2001 in accordance with the provisions of the energy employees occupational illness compensation program act (eeoicpa) which provides for compensation to workers who contracted certain diseases as a result of exposure to beryllium silica or radiation while working for the us department of energy its contractors or subcontractors in the nuclear weapons industry the board advises the president on a variety of policy and technical functions required to implement and effectively manage the new compensation program executive order 13179 specifies three primary duties for the advisory board: advise the secretary of health and human services on the development of guidelines for dose reconstructions and determination of probability of causation; advise the secretary on the validity and quality of dose reconstruction efforts performed for the program; and advise on whether there is a class of employees at any of the covered facilities who were exposed to radiation but for whom it is not feasible to estimate their radiation dose and whether there is a reasonable likelihood that such radiation may have endangered their health poston headed the dwight look college of engineerings department of nuclear engineering from 1988 to 1998 before coming to texas a&m in 1985 he was an associate professor at the georgia institute of technology he has also been a researcher for oak ridge national laboratory in oak ridge tenn and a physicist for babcock and wilcox co in lynchburg va an expert on internal and external radiation dosimetry poston and his colleagues at texas a&m developed the only abet-accredited program in radiological health engineering which combines the basics of engineering with nuclear engineering safety engineering and radiation protection he is also a researcher in the nuclear engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system poston is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) the health physics society (hps) and the american nuclear society (ans) he is a member of the society of nuclear medicine (snm) the american society for engineering education (asee) and the international radiation protection association (irpa) poston is a past president of hps and received the societys founders award in 1994 for his exceptional service to the society and the nuclear engineering profession in 1996 asee honored poston with the glenn murphy award which is given annually to a distinguished educator in recognition of outstanding contributions to the nuclear engineering discipline through teaching he was inducted into the georgia institute of technologys academy of distinguished enginering alumni in 1995 in 2005 he was awarded the hps robley d evans commemorative medal in recognition of his long and distinguished career poston holds a bachelors degree in mathematics from lynchburg college and masters and phd degrees in nuclear engineering from the georgia institute of technology
"college station texas -- researchers in the brain networks laboratory at texas a&m university have received nearly $1 million from the national institutes of health for their work exploring and understanding the complexity and scaling properties of the circuit structure of the brain the $966 000 grant is from the nihs national institute of neurological disorders and stroke and dr yoonsuck choe assistant professor in the department of computer science in the dwight look college of engineering leads the research team co-investigators are dr bruce mccormick professor and founding director of the brain networks lab; dr john keyser assistant professor of computer science; and dr louise abbott associate professor of veterinary integrative biosciences in the texas a&m college of veterinary medicine stanford universitys dr stephen smith is a project collaborator the researchers are trying to understand the ""computation "" the diverse processes going on in the brain this particular grant is to bridge sets of data from three different scales -- nanoscale (stanford) microscale (texas a&m) and macroscale (university of california los angeles) -- to provide an accurate picture of how the mouse brain is wired and how properties at each scale carry over to other scales the texas a&m team uses the knife-edge scanning microscope (kesm) the us-patented light microscope that mccormick invented to slice and image a mouse brain into 300-nanometer-thick sections the microscope scans the slice as it cuts yielding a stack of two-dimensional images of the cut sections resulting in massive amounts of three-dimensional data representing the microstructure of the mouse brain ""the kesm allows us to get a good global connectivity map of the mouse brain -- how things are wired "" choe said ""we can determine building blocks of the brain network by comparing subnetworks to other similar networks that have known properties"" at stanford smith is using an analogous instrument to the kesm the serial block face scanning electron microscope (sbf-sem) to chart brain networks on the nanoscale level the sbf-sem provides high-resolution full three-dimensional data for a small volume of brain tissue needed to determine exact places where neurons connect choe said the two research teams data are complementary: the stanford teams microscope provides a higher resolution and a higher magnification than the texas a&m teams microscope but the kesm provides a global view of the structure of the brain that the sbf-sem cannot choes team will work toward combining stanfords nanoscale data texas a&ms microscale data and uclas mouse atlas projects macroscale view of mouse brain anatomy ""we need to find out how to bridge the gap between the data sets "" choe said ""if we can find a rule to do that at one level then we can apply that to generate a full dataset based on the sparse data from a particular level in a statistically sound manner"" the researchers are now studying brains of mice but hope one day to extend their work to the human brain ""the more we learn about the human brain the better we are able to cure what ails it and to develop more advanced algorithms mimicking the neural process "" choe said ""building an understanding of the brains development function disorders and regeneration will depend on understanding how the brain is wired and how the different scales interrelate"" the research is administered by the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system choe mccormick and keyser are researchers in the computer science division of tees"
"college station texas -- dr billy l edge holder of the w h bauer professorship in dredging engineering and head of the coastal and ocean engineering program at texas a&m university has been appointed to a committee of the american society of civil engineers (asce) tasked with studying the performance of new orleanss hurricane protection system during hurricane katrina as part of the asce external review panel edge will help provide credible answers to the fundamental questions concerning the performance of the hurricane protection system in new orleans during hurricane katrina the study is expected to take eight months edge a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering in texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering has also recently begun his term as president of the board of governors of asces coasts oceans ports and rivers institute (copri) copri was established in 2000 to ""advance and disseminate scientific and engineering knowledge to its diverse membership engaged in sustainable development and the protection of coasts oceans ports waterways and wetlands"" a renowned expert in coastal engineering edge is also a researcher in the civil engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and director of teess haynes coastal engineering laboratory tees is the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system before joining the texas a&m engineering faculty edge was on the civil engineering faculty at clemson university and worked in the private sector spending 10 years at cubit engineering limited he also provided consulting services at edge & associates inc in the areas of port harbor and coastal engineering he has published more than 100 articles in referred journals and conference proceedings from his research in the areas of coastal engineering dredging technology storm surge and hurricanes coastal zone management and water quality modeling edge has served on the marine board of the national academy of engineering and is one of the three civilian members of the coastal engineering research board of the us army corps of engineers through his efforts in dissemination of research to the practicing engineer and expanding the role of the engineer in the solution of interdisciplinary problems edge has provided extensive leadership to the coastal engineering profession one of his most significant contributions has been publishing the proceedings of the international conferences on coastal engineering he served as editor to this collection from 1976 to 2000 the collection is the primary source of coastal engineering literature worldwide edge has been the recipient of numerous awards for his work including the 1998 asce john g moffatt-frank e nichol harbor and coastal engineering award; the 1997 asce international coastal engineering award; the 1983 asce arthur m wellington prize; the 1993 morrough p obrien award from the american shore and beach preservation association; and the 1980 engineering news record marksman of the year award edge holds bachelors and masters degrees in civil engineering from virginia polytechnic institute and a phd from the georgia institute of technology"
"college station texas -- astronauts dont care much about fashion: theyve been wearing essentially the same space suit for almost 40 years but they care a lot about the technology in the suit that keeps them alive that vintage technology may be getting a 21st century update thanks to engineers in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system ""the current life support system was designed for the apollo moon flights "" said michael schuller an associate research engineer in the tees center for space power (csp) and lead engineer for the life support system project ""that was pre-1969 it hasnt changed much since"" updating the space suit life support system is the first undertaking of the crew robotics and vehicle equipment (crave) project crave is a five-year $48 million nasa-funded project intended to design and develop equipment for future human spaceflight programs tees the university of alabama-birmingham and houston engineering firms oceaneering and hamilton-sunstrand are designing analyzing prototyping and developing new hardware for the crave project tees engineers are working with space flight experts at nasas johnson space center (jsc) in houston to put up-to-date technology to work in the suits life support systems the tees engineers carried out a ""functional decomposition"" of the life support system this process examined each individual function the system performs and broke it down to its most basic components ""this is what automakers do when they create a new car or update an existing model "" schuller said ""they break down every function to its smallest piece we did the same thing for the life support system"" by late may 2005 the tees researchers had completed the function structure the list of functions guided an intensive brainstorming session by a&m engineering and science faculty and student researchers and space flight experts from jsc the brainstorming participants came up with a list of design concepts that was refined during june and july ""we put them through a go-no go screen: can the concept be ready in time to use it; is it safe; does it fit into the backpack concept "" schuller said ultimately the tees researchers sent 25 conceptual designs to jsc after another nasa contractor analyzes the designs the team will perform more detailed designs the tees design proposals range from more efficient ways to keep the suits -- and the astronauts wearing them -- cool while outside a spacecraft to more compact ways to carry oxygen for astronauts to breathe and new methods of removing carbon dioxide from the suits atmosphere ""because we have particular expertise in thermal and energy management we came up with some ideas nasa hadnt thought of yet "" schuller said the oxygen system design for instance would replace the tanks of compressed oxygen used in the current life support system with smaller tanks of liquid oxygen this approach would provide more oxygen in smaller tanks schuller said the size and weight of the life support system will be important issues as nasa plans for future exploration of mars ""in a microgravity environment the mass of the suit and backpack isnt that important "" schuller said ""but a suit and backpack that weighs 300 pounds on earth weighs 50 pounds on the moon; 120 pounds on mars that weight becomes significant pretty quickly"" an earth weight of less than 70 pounds for both suit and backpack would be ideal schuller said the crave research team includes students and faculty from tees the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and texas a&m university-kingsville raymond askew a distinguished research scientist in teess center for space power is the project manager"
"college station texas -- dr karen butler-purry professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been named recipient of the 2005 american association for the advancement of science (aaas) mentor award the award recognizes butler-purry for her ""efforts for increasing the number of african americans hispanic americans and women with phds in electrical engineering and computer sciences"" she will receive the award during the aaas annual meeting in st louis feb 16-20 butler-purry joined the dwight look college of engineering faculty in 1994 in addition to being a professor she is assistant director of the power system automation laboratory in the department of electrical and computer engineering and a researcher in the electrical and computer engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system her research interests are in the areas of distribution automation and intelligent systems for power quality equipment deterioration and fault diagnosis butler-purry received the national science foundation faculty career award in 1995 and the office of naval research young investigator award in 1999 she is a member of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) the ieee power engineering society the american society for engineering education and the louisiana engineering society she is a registered professional engineer in louisiana mississippi and texas she holds a bachelors degree from southern university at baton rouge a masters degree from the university of texas at austin and a phd from howard university all in electrical engineering"
"college station texas -- american universities must produce new technologies and more trained professionals in the field of energy efficiency to deal with looming energy shortages says a texas engineering experiment station (tees) researcher who specializes in energy systems ""the peaking of world oil production combined with increasing demand will result in rapidly increasing oil and natural gas prices at least until alternate energy sources become economically viable "" said dr charles culp associate director of the tees energy systems laboratory as well as an associate professor in the department of architecture and a visiting professor in the department of mechanical engineering ""making new construction and existing buildings as energy efficient as possible can help reduce consumer demand and costs while favorably impacting the us balance of trade in tight times it doesnt make sense not to do this"" culp a solid-state physicist and professional engineer who worked for more than 20 years with energy-systems giants honeywell international and emerson electric specializes in developing technology to implement energy efficiency as well as in training young engineers to work in this growing field ""with the right equipment and skills we can achieve a 20-to-35-percent reduction in energy use in existing large buildings with an approximate two-year payback "" culp said ""for new residential construction 30-to-50-percent reductions can be achieved with current technology with little or no increase in building costs"" ""right now however our existing building inventory averages over 20 years old and most buildings have dysfunctional energy-consuming systems that cause them to consume 20 to 40 percent more energy than needed "" he said ""in addition current practices in rebuilding disaster areas often reduce energy efficiency and health in the rush to rebuild numerous short-cuts often are taken because of lack of adequate insulation and other materials owners of these renovated buildings then live with increased energy use and cost for the life of the buildings"" but solutions are not easy or quick culp said ""implementing energy efficiency on a nationwide scale will require more than a decade to educate for organize and implement also we would need 20 000 to 40 000 skilled energy engineers to meet the challenge while currently we have just a few thousand engineers experienced in this specialty"" culp said that it takes two years to train engineers to be proficient in energy efficient building or renovation techniques texas a&m has such a training program but graduates just 10 or fewer of such specially skilled engineers each year other engineering colleges graduate similar numbers of such specialists in addition to teaching culp and his graduate students work on a variety of technologies to improve energy efficiency these technologies include software to ""heal"" faulty sensors diagnostics to determine equipment problems and automatically fix problems and monitoring technology to improve the cost effectiveness of acquiring data without such monitoring mechanical heating and cooling systems may lose 20 to 50 percent of their energy savings in just a few years he cautions he also studies the movement of air within ducts measuring the differences between air flow in systems as they are designed and as they are built culp stresses that energy efficient systems can reduce pollution and consumption while making building environments more comfortable for their human inhabitants and he said paying attention to such concerns makes good financial sense ""oil industry experts have projected imminent worldwide energy shortages "" culp said ""a major effort to address this impending energy shortage could provide the united states with the ability to maintain comfortable and healthy homes and buildings spending money on reducing consumption in our buildings translates into reduced payments overseas ""spending capital on reducing domestic energy use stimulates the economy by spending part of the energy budget domestically long-term this approach can reroute 20 percent or more of us housing and building energy expenditures to investments in our own people and economy"""
"fort stockton texas -- the math and science education partnership between the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and fort stockton independent school district has paid off for the districts students -- and now for two of its employees as well at the 2005 annual conference for advancement of science teaching apache elementary schools ruth alexander a second-grade teacher and principal lupe franco were honored by the science teachers association of texas alexander was named outstanding elementary science teacher of the year for her excellence in science teaching and franco was named outstanding elementary administrator of the year for her support of science education fort stockton isd participated in the tees-administered texas rural systemic initiative (trsi) a national science foundation-funded project aiming for high quality math and science education for all students in participating rural texas school districts with leadership provided by west texas a&m university trsi affected math and science education in 88 rural school districts in 56 texas counties more than 90 000 students were affected by this project with a strategy of ""learn implement and share"" targeted at k-12 teachers administrators parents and community members of the school districts as a trsi teacher partner alexander is part of a select group where she learns new skills to use in the classroom to improve student learning and achievement she implements these skills in the classroom and shares her knowledge with other teachers in her district franco honored for her support of science and math education at the elementary level said ""with trsis help our district has continued to move forward in the areas of math and science i feel it is vital that we begin science education at the primary level if we expect our children and our country to be able to compete in this technological world in which we live ""traditionally science education has been treated lightly at this level we are striving to give our children an edge by incorporating an extensive science curriculum beginning in kindergarten"" judy kelley executive project director of the rural systemic initiatives in texas and associate director of the tees regional division at west texas a&m university said she was pleased at the recognition ""this is just a real testament to fort stockton isds commitment to promoting high-quality science and math education "" kelley said ""these two individuals are to be congratulated for the great work they do in their district to improve science education during the time trsi has worked with fort stockton isd we have been excited by the increased commitments of administrators and teachers to improve science education for all their students across grades k-12"" this isnt the districts only teacher success either in 2002 fort stockton high school science teacher diana carpenter was named the outstanding high school science teacher in texas kelley also pointed to the importance of recognition for outstanding science education in rural districts ""many times these kinds of awards are given to teachers and administrators in large districts it is very encouraging to teachers and administrators in rural districts to see statewide recognition for individuals who work in schools like their own"""
"college station texas -- dr anastasia muliana an assistant professor in texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering has received a 2006 national science foundation (nsf) career award for her research into new methods of analyzing the structure of advanced composite materials used in high-performance aircraft and marine construction and in bridges tunnels and pipelines the $400 000 grant will continue through 2011 the prestigious nsf career awards are made to outstanding junior faculty members to help them advance their research and teaching activities ""winning a career award is an affirmation of dr mulianas potential as a new faculty member "" said dr dennis oneal head of texas a&ms mechanical engineering department ""it is an extremely prestigious award for dr muliana and recognizes her commitment to scholarship and education this award will help her establish her research program in the field of mechanics and attract top graduate students to the department ""as a department we are extremely proud that dr muliana has won a career award"" muliana is also a researcher in the polymer technology center of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system her research deals with building numerical models of the behavior of composite materials built up from individual layers of different materials these built-up composites -- usually consisting of layers of fibers and polymers -- can be tailored precisely to fit individual applications because each layer has different characteristics the models muliana is investigating will help engineers predict how these composites will behave over time in different conditions of heat moisture stress and damage industries using the composites will be able to use the models to understand how to use the materials more effectively as part of the project she also will develop computational mechanics courses train both undergraduate and graduate engineering students in understanding the mechanics of these materials and will work with the industries that use composites to apply the research muliana joined the department of mechanical engineering in 2004 she received a bachelors degree from the bandung institute of technology in indonesia and masters and phd degrees from the georgia institute of technology"
"san antonio texas -- a texas engineering experiment station (tees) laboratory at brooks city-base in san antonio has received $23 million from the us army aviation and missile command to support lean manufacturing initiatives at the corpus christi army depot (ccad) the aerospace manufacturing and systems engineering division (amsed) in teess texas center for applied technology received the contract for the project leading the work will be dr john ayala amsed director and chairman of the academic center for aging aircraft and bessie m irizarry manufacturing operations manager other strategic team members include assistant manager thomas sandoval; harry whiting who will manage the daily operations at ccad; and james p ""pat"" wallace program manager for the texas engineering extension service (teex) and regional director for the texas manufacturing assistance center will be senior adviser for lean manufacturing lean manufacturing (also called the toyota production system) works to increase competitiveness by reducing waste in processes ayala said the process focuses on decreasing the cost required to make a product or offer a service; increasing the value to customers based on what the customers want; and shortening the time it takes to get the product or service to customers all without compromising safety or increasing effort on the part of the workers ccad is a us department of defense center of industrial and technical excellence for rotary wing aviation maintenance among its activities are overhauling and repairing helicopters engines and components for all service and foreign military sales and training active duty army national guard reserve and foreign military personnel amseds research includes lean analyses lean facilitation and standardization of maintenance processes for the militarys helicopters ayala said that by developing method improvements and applying ergonomics amsed can increase depot efficiency and better prepare the helicopters for combat which in turn saves time and increases productivity and safety ""due to the need for combat helicopters in wartime reducing turnaround time for repair and scheduled maintenance is a sensitive issue within the us department of defense "" ayala said amsed works closely with the ccad lean office in gathering data and preparing for the events beforehand and by preparing a method improvement presentation for the events amsed staff analyzes routing processing and assembly of helicopter parts and components and provide the current process flow for lean events work standards are still used to validate and quantify the improvement to the process amsed assists the ccad lean office in implementing and supporting lean manufacturing throughout the depot ccad brought in amsed staff in 2001 to help develop its methods and standards program which provides for the development of time and staffing standards; promotes increased efficiency and economy; supplies current and reliable reference data; and gives input to the production reporting system in 2003 ccad introduced lean manufacturing into the blackhawk recapitalization program and amsed was soon integrated into the lean office at ccad this marks amseds fifth year of work with ccad ayala said the contract supports 28 full-time employees on-site at ccad and three other researchers in college station and san antonio most on-site personnel are six sigma green belt-certified with a bachelor of science in industrial engineering"
"college station texas -- the board of regents of the texas a&m university system has honored texas a&m engineerings dr jay humphrey and dr wd ""dan"" turner with regents service awards for their service to the a&m system and the state of texas the board honored recipients of the regents service awards at its monthly meeting jan 26 at texas a&m university humphrey professor in the department of biomedical engineering and holder of the carolyn s and tommie e lohman professorship in engineering education was one of 12 recipients named regents professor at the meeting since coming to texas a&m in 1998 humphrey has been instrumental in helping establish the biomedical engineering department; recruiting and mentoring young faculty members; building an internationally recognized group in cardiovascular mechanics and mechanobiology; and developing research and training programs in biomedical engineering mathematics medical physiology and veterinary physiology humphrey has been author or co-author of two textbooks 103 journal papers and 13 book chapters he has been principal investigator for grants and contracts totaling more than $95 million and co-principal investigator on efforts totaling $1 million he is co-founder and co-editor of the international journal biomechanics and modeling in mechanobiology and serves on the editorial board of two other bioengineering journals he has reviewed papers for 40 professional journals and has given 10 invited plenary lectures at national and international meetings and 65 invited seminars at leading academic institutions in the united states canada and europe he has received numerous awards for teaching research and service humphrey holds a bachelors degree from virginia polytechnic institute and state university and masters and phd degrees from the georgia institute of technology all in applied mechanics he also did post-doctoral studies in cardiovascular science at johns hopkins university turner was one of six a&m system agency employees named a regents fellow turner is a professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m and directs the energy systems laboratory of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the a&m system turner joined the texas a&m faculty in 1981 in 1985 he helped create the energy systems laboratory (at that time the only facility of its kind in the south) to conduct applied research and provide energy management services to the state today the laboratory has a staff of 110 and annual contracts through the texas engineering experiment station that exceed $4 million more than 10 000 people have attended conferences workshops and seminars taught by turner or organized through the energy systems laboratory in 1988 when the state of texas received more than $300 million in federal funds from oil company fines turner helped write the guidelines for a statewide energy efficiency program loanstar (loans to save taxes and resources) a $986 million revolving loan fund for energy efficiency retrofits in public buildings to date loanstar has saved texans more than $160 million turner also led a team that created and implemented energy-saving technologies across the a&m system resulting in more than $40 million in savings since 1996 in 2001 turner founded a new conference the international conference on enhanced building operations to focus on improving building operations more than one-third of the papers at the fall 2005 conference in pittsburgh originated outside the united states and the 2006 conference will be held in china he is active in national organizations including serving as vice president of the american society for engineering education which named him one of the 100 educators in the united states who had made significant contributions to engineering education in the organizations first 100 years turner has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than $40 million in research contracts and has written numerous scholarly publications including a book and a handbook turner holds bachelors and masters degrees from the university of texas at austin and a phd from the university of oklahoma all in mechanical engineering the regents service awards honor professors and senior-level researchers and service delivery professionals who have provided exemplary service not only to their university or agency but also to the community the state the nation and the world eligibility requires a minimum of five years employment at an a&m system university or agency; a distinguished record of public service research teaching and creative or scholarly activity; recognition within his or her field; and a demonstrated commitment to his or her institution each recipient is given a $9 000 stipend an a&m system medallion and a commemorative certificate"
"college station texas -- vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr g kemble bennett has named dr jorge seminario professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university inaugural holder of the lanatter and herbert fox professorship in chemical engineering seminario joined the dwight look college of engineering faculty in 2004 his research focuses on nanotechnology working on the analysis design and simulation of systems and materials of nanometer dimensions especially those for the development of molecular electronics the goal is to design smaller electronic devices and other materials in order to increase their efficiency speed and energy savings as well as reduce their costs ""dr seminario performs exciting research in the emerging area of molecular electronics "" said dr kenneth r hall head of the chemical engineering department and holder of the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering ""i believe he richly deserves this honor and that herb and lanatter will be delighted by his selection"" seminario also holds a joint appointment in the department of electrical and computer engineering and is a researcher in the chemical engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system seminario worked as field engineer in broadcasting and nuclear engineering in peru and has worked for a total of 13 years in quantum chemistry research as a postdoc and research professor in chemistry departments at the university of new orleans and the university of south carolina seminario is member of the american institute of chemical engineers the institute of electrical and electronics engineers the american physical society the american chemical society the international society for engineering and the international society of quantum biology and pharmacology his research was highlighted as success story by the army research office from 2001-2003 seminarios work in nanotechnology has a strong connection with his multidisciplinary education seminario holds a bachelors degree in electrical sciences from the universidad national de ingenieria in peru and masters in physics and phd in molecular science from southern illinois university he was licensed in electronics engineering by the national board of engineers of peru in 1980 and teaches process control for undergraduates and nanotechnology for graduate students the fox professorship was established in 2003 by lanatter and herb fox texas a&m class of 1956 herb is the retired corporate executive vice president of worldwide downstream operations for murphy oil corp and serves on the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineerings advisory council and the executive forum of the mary kay oconnor process safety center lanatter is a retired elementary school teacher and active with fine arts programs in arkansas"
"college station texas -- vice chancellor and dean of engineering dr g kemble bennett has named dr sam mannan professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university inaugural holder of the mike oconnor chair i in chemical engineering an international authority on process safety and risk management mannan also directs the mary kay oconnor process safety center the center is part of the texas enginering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system mannan joined the dwight look college of engineering faculty in 1997 his research interests are in the areas of abnormal situation management aerosol research inherently safer design quantitative risk assessment reactive chemicals modeling of silane releases and flammability research ""sam mannan is an outstanding engineer and a worthy and fitting recipient of this chair "" said dr kenneth r hall chemical engineering department head and holder of the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering ""his outstanding work in process safety is world renowned"" mannan previously was vice president and national program manager for process safety and risk management operations at rmt inc a nationwide engineering services company in austin his work at rmt included catastrophic risk assessment consequence modeling hazard and operability (hazop) studies process safety management and risk management emissions reduction and petrochemical facilities issues before joining rmt he was an assistant professor of chemical engineering at the university of oklahoma mannan is a certified safety professional and a registered professional engineer in texas and louisiana he is the author of more than 80 national and international journal articles and co-authored ""guidelines for safe process operations and maintenance "" published by the center for chemical process safety american institute of chemical engineers he also edited the recently published 3rd edition of the lees loss prevention in the process industries in 2000 the american institute of chemical engineers honored mannan with the prestigious service to society award in 2003 mannan was a consultant to the board investigating the explosion of the space shuttle columbia and received the distinguished achievement award for teaching from the texas a&m association of former students and the george armistead 23 faculty fellow from the look college he was named a tees research fellow in 2002 mannan received a bachelors degree from the engineering and technology university bangladesh and masters and phd degrees from the university of oklahoma all in chemical engineering the mike oconnor chair i in chemical engineering established in 2000 is one of two in the department endowed by t michael ""mike"" oconnor a chemical engineering graduate of the university of missouri-rolla and a houston businessman whose interests include residential real estate development oconnor also is the founding donor of the mary kay oconnor process safety center"
"college station texas -- dr b don russell regents professor and holder of the jw runyon jr professorship in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the institution of electrical engineers (iee) of the united kingdom a world-renowned expert in electric power systems russell was recognized for his professional and technical contributions to the engineering profession the holder of nine patents in protection and control systems for electrical distribution systems russell is an internationally recognized expert in power system control and protection he has directed the power systems automation laboratory at texas a&m for more than 25 years and is also a researcher in the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system russell received a bachelors degree in 1970 and a masters degree in 1971 both in electrical engineering from texas a&m university he earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from the university of oklahoma in 1975 before joining the texas a&m electrical engineering department in 1976 as an assistant professor russell is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) the worlds largest technical professional society russell has served as president vice-president and secretary of the ieee power engineering society and is also a member of the american society of engineering education in addition russell is a former president of the brazos chapter of the texas society of professional engineers (tspe) and has served as the state director of tspe among his many awards and honors is the 1996 ""r&d 100"" award -- the ""oscars of invention"" -- for inventing one of the 100 most technologically significant new products russell also won the ieee herman halperin electric transmission and distribution award the societys highest honor in 1997 for his outstanding contributions to power engineering nspe honored him in 1991 with its outstanding engineering achievement award"
"college station texas -- aggie student engineers are known for their energy and theyve been helping small businesses in the brazos valley save energy for 20 years texas a&m universitys industrial assessment center (iac) housed in the department of mechanical engineering provides no-cost studies of small- and medium-sized manufacturers within about 150 miles of college station to analyze opportunities to improve energy efficiency minimize waste and improve productivity engineering students under the direction of texas a&m mechanical engineering faculty and researchers in the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) energy systems laboratory analyze a plants energy waste and productivity issues and help make manufacturers aware of services available to them such as best practices training assessments new and emerging technology software tools databases publications and other information the center celebrates its 20th anniversary in october but 2006 is already a big year for the program last fall secretary of energy samuel w bodman -- in the wake of energy supply disruptions after hurricanes katrina and rita and recent hikes in energy prices -- launched a national campaign to highlight ways for americans to save energy immediately as part of this the us department of energys industrial technologies program (of which the texas a&m iac is part) began the ""save energy now"" program aimed at larger manufacturing plants ""the iac usually goes to small plants who wouldnt or couldnt pay for our services otherwise "" said dr warren heffington center director and associate professor of mechanical engineering ""but the save energy now program invited larger manufacturers to apply for doe services and we are able to work with some of those plants if the big plants can save energy that cuts down on energy costs for texans"" in march the iac visited texas instruments in stafford and freescale semiconductor in austin the group visited a slaughterhouse in san antonio in january and then an electronics plant in houston the iac has visited granite mountain at marble falls and a salt mine in hockley where the team worked 1 500 feet below the surface theyve done newspapers too -- the houston chronicle and the san antonio express-news ""its a great program for texas manufacturers "" heffington said ""we always survey the manufacturers a few months after our visit and they claim to implement 60 percent of our recommendations at $23 million a year in total savings over the years our goal is to have more than $60 000 for implemented savings for each plant"" and its not just the manufacturers who benefit from the iacs work the center typically employs about a dozen undergraduate and graduate students each semester for clients the students identify energy conservation projects; gather data in plants including interviewing management and staff; calculate savings in terms of both energy and cost; provide conceptual designs and management techniques to capture the savings; analyze utility data; and write reports the students work in teams of five or six rotating leadership positions each time safety is always an important issue and each time one student is safety officer for the team as it works in a manufacturing plant ""the iac is an excellent program for students because its one of the more real-world experiences a student can have while at texas a&m "" heffington said ""they work for pay not a grade and were not tied to a semester schedule the great thing about the program is the leadership and teamwork training"" andy hanegan an iac employee and a senior mechanical engineering major said ""we get a real world perspective of a variety of industries we learn about conservation things companies need to do to save energy and money"" in its 20 years iac has done more than 515 visits to plants around texas and more than 200 students have gone on multiple assessments during that time each student goes on an average of 10 visits ""the true strength of the iac is its student engineering employees "" heffington said ""aggies do a really good job"" the industrial assessment center program is a national program sponsored by the us department of energy and 26 other centers at universities around the nation provide similar services"
austin -- gov rick perry has announced the appointment of dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering to the texas board of professional engineers the board licenses engineers enforces the texas engineering practice act and regulates the practice of professional engineering in texas bennett is vice chancellor of engineering for the texas a&m university system director of the texas engineering experiment station dean of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and a professor of industrial engineering at texas a&m he has held faculty positions at the virginia polytechnic institute and state university and the university of south florida as well as senior engineering positions at the martin co lockheed research laboratories and honeywell aerospace corp bennett holds a doctorate in industrial engineering from texas tech university he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and has been recognized for his professional contributions by being elected a fellow of both the society of logistics engineers and the institute of industrial engineers he was awarded the eccles medal by the society of logistics engineers for his contributions to logistics engineering and has been recognized as a distinguished educator through the awarding of the albert g holzman award by the institute of industrial engineers bennetts term on the texas board of professional engineers will expire sept 26 2011 the appointment is subject to senate confirmation during the 2007 regular session
"temperatures are on the rise and so are energy costs -- but not for some universities in the texas a&m university system for that thank the energy systems laboratory (esl) in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) texas deregulated the retail electricity industry in january 2002 for all markets that were part of investor-owned utilities most texans can now choose a retail electric provider but there are some areas where electric competition is not available since deregulation esl has been working with several system universities in the areas where competition is available -- texas a&m international university texas a&m-corpus christi texas a&m-kingsville texas a&m-galveston texas a&m-commerce tarleton state university and the institute of biosciences and technology at the texas a&m health science center -- to procure electricity at the best price ""if youre a large customer such as a university you have to go out and compete for the best price "" said dan turner esl director and regents fellow and professor in texas a&ms department of mechanical engineering ""by aggregating all the a&m system loads on one contract weve saved the participating universities a lot of money in the first year alone they saved between $15 and 2 million when compared with the previous years utility bills "" he said to procure electricity turner and esl engineers issue a request for proposals or rfp so that retail electric providers can bid to provide electricity esl evaluates the providers proposals and makes their recommendations the chief financial officers of each participating university or agency make the final decision on which provider to go with and for how long; typical contracts last for 12 or 24 months esl is now preparing to issue a new rfp for electricity procurement beginning in september ""its virtually impossible to predict what the market is going to do "" turner said ""there are so many factors involved so you try to get the best price you can"" since the initial rfp in 2002 esl has added two texas engineering extension service facilities texas cooperative extension the texas agricultural experiment station and the prairie view a&m nursing school in houston esl has also added stephen f austin university to the contract and has worked with the texas health and human services commission doing similar aggregation of its facilities in eligible areas and esl provides advice sharing its procurement experiences with other organizations such as the university of texas-pan american besides procuring electricity which saves money the lab also works to improve energy efficiency which saves energy esl specializes in continuous commissioning a trademarked and licensed process of tees and esl that works to optimize hvac (heating ventilating and air conditioning) systems and control systems to improve comfort and reduce energy consumption esl has worked with texas a&m since 1995 working with the universitys energy office and utility office for a savings of about $35 million in energy costs four teams of commissioning engineers work on the campus buildings and another team is working on the universitys utility plants and water distribution systems the commissioning teams consist of commissioning engineers technicians and even graduate students ""it¿s a great training ground for students getting their masters or phd degrees in mechanical engineering "" turner said turner said esl commissioned the tamiu campus in laredo reducing initial consumption by a third in the universitys first six buildings and the lab commissioned 12 buildings and the thermal storage system for texas a&m-corpus christi and is continuing work with the university on its chilled water distribution system esl is also commissioning 20 schools in the austin independent school district us army is biggest continuous customer but esls biggest continuous commissioning customer is the us army working to commission several army hospitals throughout the united states including the hospitals at fort sill in oklahoma fort bragg in north carolina fort carson in colorado the brooke army medical center in san antonio and the walter reed army institute of research in washington dc ""our influence in the area of continuous commissioning has spread across the country "" turner said ""walter reed alone has saved more than $1 million in the past 22 months"" originally printed in the may/june issue of systemwide"
"college station texas -- dr ls ""skip"" fletcher regents professor and thomas a dietz professor of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has received the 2006 american institute of aeronautics and astronautics foundation award for excellence fletcher was recognized for ""four decades of dedicated service to the aerospace community as an educator mentor and leader and for exemplary efforts to further international collaboration in science and engineering"" fletcher was also recently named president-elect of the accreditation board for engineering technology (abet) inc the accreditation body dedicated to ensuring quality in applied science computing engineering and technology education fletcher came to texas a&m in 1980 and has held a variety of positions at the university including associate dean of the dwight look college of engineering and the halliburton professor of mechanical engineering from 1985-88 fletcher was associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system from 1999 to 2005 fletcher was director for aerospace at nasa ames research center in moffett field calif before coming to texas a&m fletcher was professor and chairman of the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the university of virginia he also served as a professor of aerospace engineering and associate dean at rutgers university a registered professional engineer in arizona new jersey texas virginia england and australia fletcher has written more than 200 journal and conference papers and six books and holds five patents fletcher is a fellow of aiaa abet the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) the american association for the advancement of science the american astronautical society and the american society for engineering education among his numerous honors are the asme medal the societys highest form of recognition; the 2005 james watt international gold medal by the institution of mechanical engineers of the united kingdom; and the 2006 bush excellence award for faculty in public service fletcher received a bachelors degree from texas a&m a masters degree from stanford university and a phd from arizona state university all in mechanical engineering established in 1998 the award recognizes unique contributions and extraordinary accomplishments by organizations or individuals and is granted by the institutes board of trustees on a case-by-case basis past recipients of the award sen john glenn gen tommy franks john travolta and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff john shalikashvili"
"college station texas -- dr eg ""skip"" ward associate director of the texas engineering experiment stations offshore technology research center was honored by the american petroleum institute (api) for his 30 years of service to the organization ward received the institutes 30+ years of service recognition award at the executive committee on standardization of oilfield equipment and materials conference ward has been ""a key contributor to apis standardization program "" said david miller apis director of standards ward joined otrc in 1998 as associate director since then he has worked to enhance and strengthen the centers relationship with the oil industry though expanding existing and introducing new technical thrusts; developing and promoting more applied research and application studies; and developing new roles for the center to serve the oil industry he has also had a lead role in planning coordinating and administrating the center¿s research program which typically includes about 20 active projects in a variety of technical areas he previously spent 30 years with shell oil co beginning with shell development cos e&p research division in 1968 as a researcher from 1981 to 1985 he supervised the oceanographic engineering section and from 1985 to 1994 he managed the offshore engineering research department in 1994 ward became technology manager with shell offshore incs deepwater division where he was responsible for a group that designed deepwater structures and developed new structural concepts and components for deepwater production systems throughout his career ward has made significant technical contributions in the areas of oceanography and ocean engineering arctic engineering structural engineering and pipeline engineering ward has been a member of api since 1976 he earned a bachelors degree from lamar university and masters and phd degrees from the university of houston all in mechanical engineering established in 1988 with funding from the nsf and industry the otrc was created to conduct basic engineering research and develop systems for the economical and reliable recovery of hydrocarbons and other energy sources at ocean depths of 3 000 feet or more the center is jointly operated by the texas a&m university the university of texas at austin and the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas &mdash; when a 16-year-old boy suffers serious injuries from a car crash in canton ny he rides an ambulance from the local hospital to the nearest level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center fletcher allen health care in burlington vt &mdash; more than 3 hours away ""theyre a lot like texas "" said james a wall director of the computing and information technology division in the texas center for applied technology (tcat) in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) ""because theyve got people out in remote areas where theres a long transport time and physicians need to weigh in early on certain serious medical problems"" wall and his coworkers have developed a mobile telemedicine system for a fletcher allen specialized telemedicine for supporting transport and rescue (fast star) project ambulance that enables the trauma centers doctors to evaluate a patient like the teenager in the above example and coach emts through treating the patient while on the road hard-wired into the fast star ambulance the mobile telemedicine system among other things has two high-tech cameras and six cellular telephone channels for two-way audio and one-way video so fletcher allen doctors are able to hear and see the patient and emts ""in the first contract they only wanted video and audio capability but now they also want to add patient physiological telemetry &mdash; the heart rate the blood pressure etc &mdash; and the infrared spectrometer and an ambulance navigation system "" wall said in addition to the mobile telemedicine system installed in the fast star ambulance wall and his coworkers have engineered a briefcase-sized kit that equips any ambulance that has the prerequisite hookups with the same sort of system they delivered the kit to fletcher allen in august ""with minimal prep work ahead of time well be able to take the grab-and-go kit open it up plug it in and itll have the same functionality as a fast star ambulance "" said michael p caputo director of telehealth operations at fletcher allen caputo and his coworkers have tested the mobile telemedicine systems in trial runs they expect to complete the tests and deploy the systems within the year tcat computer scientists developed the mobile telemedicine systems in the interacttm ambulances that were commissioned by disaster relief and emergency medical services (dreams) the partnership between the texas a&m university system and the university of texas health science center at houston ""tcat has expertise theyve developed over the years doing research for groups like the dod (us department of defense) on mobile transmission of medical images - thats a critical part of this project "" caputo said ""tcat has some of the most knowledgeable people in the country when it comes to this"" fletcher allen the teaching hospital of the university of vermont college of medicine and the medical school have twice contracted with tcat for mobile telemedicine systems in behalf of fast star the project has been funded with an $880 000 grant from the us department of transportation ""our transport times can be anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours "" caputo said the only verified trauma center in vermont fletcher allen has filled the gap for the most part with stationary telemedicine systems that permit rural doctors to consult the trauma centers doctors in real time yet the emts who transfer patients in ambulances from the field to rural hospitals and from the rural hospitals to fletcher allen have been on their own &mdash; till now ""this is a continuity of care "" caputo said ""its our belief that this will improve the quality of care"""
"college station texas -- when most of us think about nuclear and radiological nonproliferation we think of diplomats and high-level international negotiations nuclear engineer william charlton thinks of technology and education charlton an associate professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university helped establish the national security science policy institute (nsspi) a joint undertaking of the nuclear engineering department and texas a&ms george bush school of government and public service and the texas engineering experiment station the engineering technology and education agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system nsspis goal is to bring nuclear technology and education together with development of sound policy for nuclear nonproliferation in the past most efforts aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear and radiological weapons moved along separate paths charlton says one policy-oriented and one technology-oriented this situation led to treaties like the comprehensive test ban treaty of 1996 which the united states refused to sign ""on the political side it made sense and we agreed with it "" he said ""but at the time the treaty was signed there was no way to verify compliance with it"" this is where the nsspi comes in ""one of our goals in this institute is to work with our partners (such as the bush school) to try to help fix those sorts of problems so that for any treaty signed there is a technological basis for how we can verify that treaty and maintain it "" charlton said charlton considers the ability to bring together the policy development part of nonproliferation with the ability to develop the technology needed to make verification reliable the institutes biggest strength nonproliferation technologies nsspi researchers are working on include * procedures and detection capabilities to safeguard nuclear reactor fuel; * methods and technology to allow for the determination of the source of nuclear or radiological material used in a terrorist attack (such as the reactor that produced the spent fuel used in a dirty bomb); and * more sensitive and accurate interrogation devices to detect radioactive materials at ports of entry institute faculty members also are working with educators at two russian institutions -- the moscow engineering physics institute (mephi) and the obninsk institute of nuclear power engineering in russia (russian academic program in nuclear nonproliferation and international security) and in texas a&ms nuclear engineering department -- to develop new masters level degree programs in nonproliferation the new programs held their first classes this fall the institute also is working with nuclear weapons scientists in several countries to help redirect weapons development programs into peaceful uses of nuclear technology such as producing medical isotopes"
"laredo texas -- high school students from laredos two engineering magnet schools are working with researchers in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) to provide electricity to colonias residents along the us-mexico border without electric power dean schneider an engineer with the tees texas center for applied technology in san antonio said that students in the united high school engineering and technology magnet school and the laredo isd magnet for engineering and technology applications will collaborate with tees and west texas a&m university (wtamu) engineers to build and install four wind turbines in the next two years -- one a year from each school the students will build the wind turbines from existing plans and install the first two demonstration turbines next spring in a colonia and on the cigarroa high school campus the students will also generate a set of instructions that will be translated into spanish to be understandable by typical colonia residents in the us-mexico border region schneider said the end-product of the collaboration is not the turbines themselves but rather the set of instructions the students generate on how to build and install the turbines ""were showing the colonias residents that if these students can install these turbines then they can do it as well "" schneider said david canales director of uniteds engineering magnet school and engineering principles instructor laura rodriguez said the two teams will focus on different aspects of the turbines: the united students will focus on the turbines motor generators for power while the cigarroa students will build the blades and the storage units for the turbines then the teams will switch roles for the final two turbines while also collecting data on the turbines energy production and performance ""each of us gets to go through the entire process "" rodriguez said canales said that during the year tees engineers and researchers from wtamus alternative energy institute will provide hands-on instruction and lectures on wind energy as well as engineering project management and execution ""the lectures will tie into what were doing already -- science math engineering and even geography such as the places where its best to use wind as an energy source this project just fits in so well because its what weve been doing ""and everyone gets to do it not just seniors or the very top kids this is very much project-based hands-on real-life learning"" lisds engineering magnet school director gus perez said ""that professional engineers working in the field are coming in to provide direct in-class instruction to the students sets apart our magnet programs from most other programs that might just have professionals coming in to do talks or presentations during career days the engineers lectures will cover topics ranging from forces magnetism batteries and electric machines to wind energy and blade theory"" and said lisd engineering teacher amanda gonzalez ""this will give the magnet students working on this project a real-world experience that most students at the university dont even get"" schneider agreed ""this is a hands-on in-your-face engineering project for these students "" schneider said ""were using this project to teach students and to give them an idea of what its really like to be an engineer because until you get out and start practicing engineering you dont really know what you can do and how much of a difference you can make"" the project is part of a two-year $100 000 grant from the texas state energy conservation office other project partners include texas a&m universitys center for housing and urban development (chud) in the college of architecture and the webb county department of economic development which operates the county colonia community centers and self-help center tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
college station texas -- a texas a&m university electrical engineer studying high-temperature superconductors will receive one of the first 21 research grants awarded by the air force research offices young investigator research program (yip) haiyan wang an assistant professor of the department of electrical and computer engineering will use her three-year grant -- part of a new $63 million program intended to encourage outstanding young science and engineering researchers to conduct basic research -- to study the new superconductors flat ribbons of metal coated with yttrium barium copper oxide the new conductors are expected to be able to carry three to five times as much current than conventional power cables and do it at higher temperatures than earlier versions the new superconductors are important to development of new air force energy weapons and the us navys electric warships and combat vehicles programs they also should make possible more-efficient and less-expensive power generators high-frequency source magnets transformers and electric motors wang joined the electrical and computer engineering department in january 2006 she is also a researcher in the electrical and computer engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system before coming to texas a&m wang was on the staff of the los alamos national laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow and a permanent staff member she holds a bachelor of science degree from nanchang university (china) and a masters degree from the institute of metal research (china) she received the phd degree in materials science and engineering from north carolina state university
"college station texas &mdash; a consortium of the texas a&m university system and the university of texas health science center at houston has placed one of its advanced technology ambulances with st joseph regional health center in bryan with funding from the us army disaster relief and emergency medical services (dreams&trade;) has outfitted five ambulances with specially designed digital emergency medical services (digital ems) systems that enable emts to consult with emergency room physicians at participant hospitals dreams&trade;-equipped emergency vehicles known as interact&trade; ambulances have been operated by liberty county ems since 2004 three ambulances are currently in operation in this east texas county with a fourth to be delivered in october two of these ambulances are owned by the consortium and two are owned by liberty county and outfitted with dreams&trade; technology ""the interact&trade; ambulance represents a dramatic transformation of the treatment available in a traditional ambulance in which emts have a limited set of treatment options in an interact&trade; ambulance emts can be authorized to use more extensive treatment options administered under the watchful eye of the remote er physician "" said one of the co-principal investigators for the digital ems part of dreams&trade; james a wall director of the computing and information technology division of the texas center for applied technology (tcat) in the texas engineering experiment station a member of the a&m system ""additional procedures are made possible when dreams&trade; technology delivers high-quality video and real-time patient data to the remote er physician greatly enhancing the physicians situational awareness in the ambulance to support the medical decision-making process"" the hardware and software used in these advanced systems has been developed by the dreams&trade; digital ems project team the ambulance hardware integrates specially developed communications and computer systems with commercial off-the-shelf medical and computer devices such as digital video cameras gps navigation systems ruggedized laptops signature pads bar-code scanners vital signs monitors 12-lead ekgs portable blood analyzers ultrasounds and more at the hospital a companion system including communications and computer devices allows the er physician to receive video audio real-time medical data and text from the ambulance and transmit audio text and video annotations to the ambulance ""dreams&trade; digital ems was funded to support rural america where distance translates to time en route and time en route directly affects the golden hour that time period in which a medic or physician can significantly affect the medical outcomes of the patient "" said the other co-principal investigator for digital ems larry d flournoy associate director of the academy for advanced telecommunications and learning technologies at texas a&m university the software for the digital ems systems presents a unified graphical user interface (gui) to the paramedic driver and er physician ""through pursuing nondisclosure agreements with multiple companies we are able to integrate a wide variety of medical technologies behind a single dreamstm user interface offering medics and physicians an intuitive application without the need for third-party software "" said tcats lead software engineer for digital ems christopher j kocmoud the dreams&trade; systems can streamline the pre-hospital stage of a patients treatment wall said for example emts in an interact&trade; ambulance may input the patients drivers license using the card reader to transfer the information to an electronic form that is transmitted to the hospital the emts can alert the hospital to the need for physician intervention with voice video text messaging or a special audible alarm on the dreams&trade; system at the hospital the er physician can remotely control the multiple video cameras in the ambulance to pan tilt or zoom to view the patients injuries with colored on-screen markers the physician can coach the emts through treatment that extends beyond normal ems protocols and all along the emts and physicians can monitor on-screen the patients vital signs and the ambulances location the two principal investigators for the dreams&trade; consortium bring together the expertise of both the a&m system and ut health science center at houston the a&m systems principal investigator is richard e ewing vice president for research at texas a&m ""texas a&m is well-positioned to lead with the university of texas on this project "" he said ""we have the breadth and depth of research to accomplish and further this life-saving work for texans we are so pleased that st joseph is able to use the technology right in our hometown"" the principal investigator for the ut health science center at houston is dr james h ""red"" duke jr professor of surgery and john b holmes professor of clinical sciences at the ut health science center at houston and director of trauma and emergency medical services at memorial hermann hospital duke is also the medical director of memorial hermann life flight a renowned medical evacuation helicopter service the consortium is now customizing its unique digital ems systems for use in life flight helicopters under its sister project texas training and technology for trauma and terrorism (t5) also funded by the us army"
"college station texas -- increased security in american ports and waterways is the goal of two engineering professors in texas a&m universitys department of industrial and systems engineering dr wilbert e wilhelm mike and sugar barnes professor and assistant professor dr yu ding have received a $331 111 grant from the national science foundation (nsf) for their project ""strategic design and tactical operation of surveillance sensor systems for ports and waterway security"" the researchers aim to design surveillance sensor systems to assure robust security in ports and waterways especially to deal with unauthorized smaller boats that can easily gain access to sensitive targets the researchers are using the houston ship channel as a trial case ""many people do not realize how vulnerable our ports are to a variety of threats "" wilhelm said ""and how devastating an attack could be to a surrounding city -- for example as poisonous gas is released from a damaged storage container"" in the first part of the project strategic design wilhelm is determining where to locate sensors to provide adequate surveillance types of sensors include television cameras; infrared cameras; radar; and sound motion or heat detectors and wilhelm said he is designing a heterogeneous sensor system so as not to rely on a single type of sensor ""were looking at interdiction "" wilhelm said ""so we have to look at various types of threats for instance a large ship or tanker has certain characteristics such as traveling at a certain speed or maneuvering in certain ways each type of threat travels at a different speed"" wilhelm said the researchers have to understand which points to observe in order to interdict these threats then the information is fed into a sensor location model to optimize the cost of buying installing and maintaining the sensors ""the challenge is to develop algorithms to solve problems as large as what might be found in actual applications "" wilhelm said the researchers also have to deal with uncertainty so that in case a sensor fails a threat can still be observed thats known as fault tolerance capability and is the tactical part of the project ""fault tolerance analysis "" ding said ""is `what if there is a failure due to harsh environmental conditions or intentional tampering what kinds of redundancy are needed and at what cost level"" ding said that with different sensors come different types of information and different uncertainties by integrating the information in an intelligent way a heterogeneous surveillance system could potentially be able to detect anomalies distinguishing between ""normal"" and abnormal operation and behavior of a ship in open water as well as in a ship channel or waterway ""each type of ship has a set of unique characteristics "" wilhelm said ""in a ship channel the way a ship turns and maneuvers and how it has to slow down to turn are unique to each type of ship so if a ship starts to turn or speed up unexpectedly then maybe its been commandeered and is being piloted awkwardly and we need to detect that anomaly ""additionally ships of certain sizes go to certain locations in a port or waterway so if we find a tanker upstream from where its supposed to be thats anomalous"" ""but "" ding said ""you also have to reduce the false-positive rate with too many false positives the sensor network becomes a nuisance rather than a safeguard so how can we keep the probability of a false positive in check"" wilhelm and ding said that the mathematical models they are developing will give better understating of how a surveillance sensor network should work and allow better decision making by port and waterway security personnel ""were using the houston ship channel as a trial case "" wilhelm said ""but our models are generic so they can apply to each and every us port and waterway"" wilhelm and ding are also researchers in the industrial and systems engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas -- texas a&m engineering and the us department of energys (doe) national nuclear security administration (nnsa) have successfully converted the universitys 1-megawatt triga research reactors fuel from highly enriched uranium (heu) to low-enriched uranium (leu) this is the first research reactor conversion in the united states since the creation of nnsas global threat reduction initiative (gtri) in may 2004 as a part of its nonproliferation mission nnsa converts research reactors in the united states and around the world from operating on heu to leu fuel the effort is part of the bush administrations efforts to minimize the use of highly enriched uranium in civilian applications around the world the reactor is part of the nuclear science center a research center jointly operated by the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) tees is the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system texas a&m engineering and nnsa worked closely with the does office of nuclear energy and the nuclear regulatory commission (nrc) to complete this reactor conversion in less than 18 months us representative chet edwards and senior officials from nnsa does office of nuclear energy and the nrc joined texas a&m officials in college station today (oct 13) to commemorate the successful fuel conversion of the reactor ""minimizing the use of highly enriched uranium for civilian purposes makes for good nonproliferation policy around the world "" nnsa administrator linton brooks said ""it is a priority for this administration as demonstrated through the conversion of our own reactors in the united states to replace heu -- a nuclear weapons-usable material -- with alternative more suitable and less dangerous material like low-enriched uranium"" texas a&m university president robert m gates said ""as one of the largest nuclear engineering programs in the nation we are preparing the next generation of nuclear professionals being the first research reactor to convert to low-enriched uranium through the nnsa initiative is an honor and rare opportunity for our university to experience this historic event in nuclear nonproliferation activity i am immensely proud of the hard work and dedication of texas a&m engineering and the nuclear science center staff for their outstanding conversion effort"" edwards agreed ""this innovative nuclear non-proliferation technology at texas a&m is vital to americas efforts across the world to reduce the threats posed by nuclear terrorism "" edwards said ""as an aggie i am proud to support texas a&ms national leadership role in nuclear terrorism prevention"" the conversion of the texas a&m research reactor supports the 2005 north american security and prosperity partnership under which the united states mexico and canada agreed to complete the conversion of civilian heu reactors on the north american continent by 2011 provided such leu fuel is available specifically the united states will convert six university research reactors mexico will convert its one research reactor in mexico city and canada will convert three research reactors this reactor conversion also supports the 2005 bratislava joint statement on nuclear security cooperation issued by president george w bush and russian president vladimir putin under the statement the united states and russia agreed to work together to convert more than 30 us- and russian-supplied research reactors around the world from the use of heu to leu brian e thomas chief of the nrcs research and test reactors branch said ""the texas a&m conversion was extremely successful primarily because of close collaboration between the doe nnsa the university and nrc staff the university responded promptly to the nrcs information needs throughout the review process lessons from this conversion will improve the process at other research reactors that switch to leu"" texas a&m officials said prior to the conversion their reactor used heu fuel enriched to contain 70 percent uranium-235 (u-235) -- well below the level of enrichment needed for weapons-grade material which is 90 percent u-235 additionally in the four decades of intense use since the reactor first went into operation the fuel had depleted to about 60 percent of its original enrichment rendering the fuel further unusable for weapons nnsa will also complete the conversion of another research reactor at the university of florida this month the global threat reduction initiatives mission includes returning and securing nuclear fuel and converting research reactors around the world currently gtri is working to convert 59 more reactors around the world from heu to leu by 2014 established by congress in 2000 nnsa is a semi-autonomous agency within the us department of energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science nnsa maintains and enhances the safety security reliability and performance of the us nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the us navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the united states and abroad visit http://wwwnnsadoegov for more information"
"san antonio -- texas engineering experiment station (tees) researchers in san antonio have received $1 million for helicopter rotor blade protection research dr john f ayala will direct the project ""rotor blade protection against sand and water erosion "" which aims to improve the protective coatings on rotor blades ayala directs the aerospace manufacturing and systems engineering division in teess texas center for applied technology (tcat) in san antonio and also chairs the academic center for aging aircraft (acaa) which focuses research on issues related to aging aircraft in the military under the guidance and direction of the joint council on aging aircraft composed of representatives of the us army us navy us air force the federal aviation administration and the defense logistics agency other principal investigators will be dr paul cizmas and dr john slattery both faculty in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university and researchers from the university of dayton research institute congress has funded the project for fiscal year 2007 because of the researchs importance to the us department of defense (dod) ""the current war efforts in iraq and afghanistan are in sandy desert terrain "" ayala said ""the sand is eroding the paint of the main and tail rotor blades of the helicopters which has a big impact on the readiness of the helicopters a similar problem occurs when operating in humid marine environments or rain ""we can extend the useful life of rotor blades by having coatings that are not easily eroded "" ayala said congressman henry bonilla who was instrumental in securing funding for the research said ""the united states has the most technologically advanced military in the world but maintaining this highly-specialized equipment is as vital as its development the tiniest particles of sand can cause tremendous damage over time to the aircraft rotor blades with our ongoing operations in the middle east now more than ever we need to focus on protecting our military aircraft in this harsh environment i am proud to be able to secure $1 million for this project to study the effects of water and sand erosion so that we might develop the necessary coating to prevent further damage"" the rotor blade protection research began two years ago with an acaa project that resulted in a method that accelerated the testing and screening of coatings for helicopters rotor blade protection against sand coatings help protect rotor blades against premature aging due to environmental conditions and texas a&m aerospace engineering professors cizmas and slattery developed the first approach for evaluating relative sand-erosion resistance ""the erosion of these protective coatings can have significant impact on helicopter readiness and evaluating these coatings will help the armed services "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""this is just one of the many ways tees and texas a&m engineering researchers are applying their knowledge to make a difference and we are grateful to congressman bonilla for his support"" the coatings are eroded by sand water or both ayala said the texas a&m approach looks at all three types of erosion and also can be used to identify how coatings should be redesigned to improve adhesiveness and effectiveness of coatings the tees researchers will work with the university of dayton research institute (udri) an acaa partner institution which does sand erosion testing for the department of defense the university of dayton research institute with its us air force particle erosion test facility and rain erosion test facility can simulate these environments and evaluate the erosion effects on coated aircraft surfaces cizmas and slattery plan to extend the texas a&m approach for sand erosion to water erosion a testing program will include the influence of sand particle and water droplet size impact angle coating thickness adhesive type impact velocity and temperature the end result is to be able to qualify and certify various coatings that dod should procure or even invest in for rotor blades ""we can help the dod pick the best coatings and also influence coating design "" ayala said the texas engineering experiment station is the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
college station texas &mdash; the institute of electrical and electronics engineers has honored an electrical engineering professor in texas a&m universitys dwight look college of engineering b don russell holder of the jw runyon jr 35 professorship in the department of electrical and computer engineering has been awarded the meritorious service award of the ieees power engineering society the award recognizes russells contributions to the pes and power engineering over the past 30 years russell has directed the texas engineering experiment stations power systems automation laboratory for more than 25 years he holds numerous patents for power system protection and control systems including an array of computer-controlled technology that automatically monitors the power system and notifies operators when system components are on the verge of failure the automated monitoring system is currently being tested on 11 electric power systems in the united states and canada russell has held virtually every position at every level of the pes said pes executive director bob dent russell was the first engineering educator in 25 years to serve as pes president and his 16-year tenure on the societys governing board is the longest anyone has served in this capacity he also has represented pes on the ieee governing board he is a member of the national academy of engineering and a fellow of the national society of professional engineers an expert in electric power system automation and control russell served on a blue-ribbon panel that investigated a widespread power outage in the western united states in 2002 and is a member of the national research council committee studying the vulnerability of the power system to terrorist attacks
college station texas - dr john m niedzwecki associate vice chancellor and executive associate dean for engineering has been appointed regents professor by the board of regents of the texas a&m university system niedzwecki is a professor in the zachry department of civil engineering and holder of the rp gregory 32 chair in civil engineering as well as associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the a&m system he was among 14 professors and administrators with texas a&m and a&m system agencies who received the designation of regents professor or regents fellow for 2006-2007 during a nov 30 meeting of the a&m system board of regents niedzwecki joined texas a&m more than 27 years ago as an assistant professor was promoted through the academic ranks and eventually selected to lead the department as head of the department of civil engineering from 1998-2003 he was instrumental in leading the department to rank among the nations top 10 he directed development of a departmental strategic plan providing impetus to a successful fund-raising campaign reintroduction of a survey camp professional day for students naming of the department and numerous awards he has been heavily involved in developing new courses initiating major classroom renovations and furthering international education and research exchanges between texas a&m students and students abroad niedzwecki specializes in offshore civil engineering and was instrumental in securing the national science foundation (nsf) offshore technology research center (otrc) for tees and the a&m system he later led the centers transition to becoming fully funded by the energy industry he has published numerous journal articles and made more than 75 conference presentations niedzwecki is a registered professional engineer in texas and serves on the board of trustees of the southwest research institute he is a fellow of the american society of civil engineers and a member of numerous professional organizations including the american society of mechanical engineers serving as an associate editor of its journal of offshore mechanics and arctic engineering niedzwecki holds two bachelors degrees and a masters degree from boston university and earned his phd from the catholic university of america
"college station texas &mdash; two faculty members in texas a&m universitys department of electrical and computer engineering as well as researchers in the texas engineering experiment station have been elected to the rank of fellow of the institute of electrical and electronic engineers (ieee) professor robert d nevels has been cited for ""contributions to electromagnetic field theory for quantum mechanics "" and associate professor zixiang xiong for ""contributions to source and channel coding"" with the addition of nevels and xiong 18 faculty members in the department of electrical and computer engineering have reached the rank of fellow this is considered a significant honor because the number of ieee members who may advance to fellow in one year is 010 percent of the total 320 000 membership the ieee directory describes the honor as ""one of unusual professional distinction conferred only by the [ieee] board of directors upon a person of extraordinary qualifications and experience"" to be considered candidates must have made an outstanding contribution to the electrical and electronics profession nevels began working in the department of electrical and computer engineering in 1978 during his tenure in the department he has established the electromagnetics and microwave laboratory and organized an undergraduate microwave course for which he wrote the lab manual and obtained equipment funding nevels was also the associate department head from 1998 to 2005 his other distinctions include the texas a&m association of former students distinguished achievement award; the ieee region 5 outstanding educator award for 1997; the clear lake council of technical societies technical educator of the year in 1996; the outstanding professor award from the ieee texas a&m student chapter in 1994 and 1998; and the amoco foundation award for distinguished teaching in 1995 nevels interest areas include mathematical and numerical techniques in electromagnetics electromagnetic scattering antennas and waveguidance he received his bachelors from the university of kentucky in 1969 his masters from the georgia institute of technology in 1974 and his phd from the university of mississippi in 1979 xiong began working in the department in 1999 after working at the university of hawaii as an assistant professor his research interests include image and video coding adaptive quantization and fast algorithms digital watermarking joint source channel coding internet video lossless medical image compression image recovery image rendering and color quantization xiongs other recent honors include being named a tees fellow and a tees select young faculty; and receiving the young investigator award from the office of naval research and the united states army research office and the career award from the national science foundation xiong received his bachelors at wuhan university in pr china his masters degrees at the university of kansas and the illinois institute of technology and his doctorate from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign in 1996"
"college station texas - most texans have little reason to think about earthquakes or seismic damage much in their everyday lives but for dr david rosowsky of texas a&m university extreme events like earthquakes hurricanes and the performance of structures under such conditions are more than just an interest &mdash; they are his passion rosowsky department head and ap and florence wiley chair professor in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m and a researcher in the texas engineering experiment station is part of a team working on a four-year $124 million project funded by the national science foundation through the network for earthquake engineering simulation (nees) the project studies the performance of engineered wood structures subjected to seismic loading the projects first phase included a large-scale test conducted in the summer of 2006 at the university of buffalos structural engineering and earthquake simulation lab and was led by a team of faculty and students from colorado state university university of buffalo texas a&m cornell university and rensselaer polytechnic institute a two-story 1 800 square-foot fully furnished townhouse was built and placed inside the lab on two moveable piston-powered shake tables among the largest of their kind in the united states engineers and researchers jolted shook and rattled the house in a series of five mock earthquakes that grew in size and magnitude according to rosowsky wood is one of the most common construction materials for residential and other low-rise structures in the country this fact coupled with the growing interest in building taller wood frame structures in some of the most seismically active parts of the country produces a need to develop an engineering design philosophy for wood structures built in earthquake-prone regions to ensure life safety and minimize structural damage and costs to acceptable levels ""we hope to use the data collected from this project to better understand how wood structures behave under earthquake loads "" rosowsky said ""if we can predict where the weaknesses lie within these structures we can take steps to strengthen those problem areas and build structures better able to withstand the damaging earthquake forces minimizing structural displacement and the resulting damage"" the fourth shake test of the project rattled the townhouse with the force of a magnitude 64 earthquake much like the one that pummeled northridge calif in 1994 that disaster resulted in 60 deaths and is believed to be the costliest earthquake in us history with damages reaching $40 billion the test house was put to the ultimate trial with the fifth and final experiment on nov 14 when it was subjected to what is known as the maximum credible earthquake this earthquake is the strongest possible quake at a given area based on the local seismology and geology this final test of phase one resembled the infamous 1906 san francisco earthquake that produced tremors measuring from 77 to 83 on the richter scale and resulted in the loss of around 3 000 lives phase two takes the project across the globe to miki city japan there in early 2009 rosowsky and the team of researchers will test a six-story building on e-defense the worlds largest shake table ""while wood structures are not as ubiquitous in japan as they are in the united states north american stick-frame style construction is gaining popularity and both american and canadian companies are moving to capitalize on great new opportunities "" rosowsky said with japan located in a highly seismic region rosowsky believes that both the united states and japan have strong incentives to develop new engineered design procedures for wood frame structures subject to earthquake loading ""these tests conducted in the united states and in japan are the largest shake- table tests of wood frame structures ever performed "" rosowsky said ""we can learn an enormous amount from this project and through the development of new design procedures have a significant impact on the safety and damage resistance of a very large class of buildings"""
college station - dr yue kuo dow professor in texas a&m universitys artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has received the electrochemical societys (ecs) 2007 electronics and photonics division award for his work with semiconductors the award - among the most prestigious in the field of electronics - acknowledges remarkable work in the field with up to $2 500 or membership in ecs for the lifetime of the recipient as the recipient of the 2007 electronics and photonics division award kuo is expected to deliver a lecture to the electronics and photonics division symposium of the 211th ecs meeting may 6-11 in chicago in addition to the 2007 electronics and photonics division award kuo has received various awards and distinctions such as fellow in ecs and ieee kuos interests include semiconductors and thin films governments and industries consult him about biochips dielectrics plasma processing thin-film transistors and very large scale integrated circuits after about two decades of research into semiconductors in ibms thomas j watson research center and silicon valley kuo joined the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering in 1998 he is also a professor of electrical engineering and materials science and engineering; and a researcher in the texas engineering experiment station kuo earned his bachelors from national taiwan university and his masters and doctorate from columbia university for more information about kuos research visit http://yuekuotamuedu
"college station texas &mdash; the spur volunteer fire department (vfd) in dickens county has received a 2006 assistance-to-firefighters grant (afg) from the us department of homeland security the funded grant proposal was developed and submitted through a collaborative effort between spur vfd and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) center for community support this $114 157 federal grant will help purchase a 2007 ford f-750 wildland fire apparatus following the wildfires across north texas in recent years the need for this new fire unit for protecting human life livestock and property became critical the new fire apparatus will replace a 1968 surplus military truck the department obtained and modified almost 20 years ago for firefighting operations the afg program is a national grant competition where local fire and emergency service organizations apply to the federal government for assistance in purchasing vehicles equipment and training ""these are highly competitive grants"" said kash krinhop assistant director of the tees center for community support ""almost 20 000 applications were submitted last year and only about 5 000 to 6 000 will be awarded in the country in recent years there have been many texas vfds benefiting greatly from the centers grant assistance the assistance we offer gives these departments a competitive edge in getting these grants which make a big difference in the publics safety across much of texas"" in 2006 the tees center for community support worked with 14 texas vfds in developing grant proposals resulting in $540 000 to date for three fire apparatuses equipment protective gear and training since 2001 the center has worked with more than 100 vfds and emergency service organizations helping secure grants totaling more than $25 million for improvements in firefighter and public safety in texas the tees center for community support provides a broad range of information data and proposal writing services at no cost for texas community-based nonprofit organizations support is available to pursue competitive funding for programs designed to improve the quality of life for texans more than $32 million in federal and private grants have been garnered for texas nonprofit sector with the direct assistance of the center"
college station texas - dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering has appointed dr john w poston sr interim head of the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university the appointment is effective jan 17 dr william burchill who has headed the department since 2003 will retire jan 16 poston headed the dwight look college of engineerings department of nuclear engineering from 1988 to 1998 before coming to texas a&m in 1985 he was an associate professor at the georgia institute of technology he has also been a researcher for oak ridge national laboratory in oak ridge tenn and a physicist for babcock and wilcox co in lynchburg va an expert on internal and external radiation dosimetry poston and his colleagues at texas a&m developed the only abet-accredited program in radiological health engineering which combines the basics of engineering with nuclear engineering safety engineering and radiation protection he is also a researcher in the nuclear engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system poston is a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science (aaas) the health physics society (hps) and the american nuclear society (ans) he is a member of the society of nuclear medicine (snm) the american society for engineering education (asee) and the international radiation protection association (irpa) poston is a past president of hps and received the societys founders award in 1994 for his exceptional service to the society and the nuclear engineering profession in 1996 asee honored poston with the glenn murphy award which is given annually to a distinguished educator in recognition of outstanding contributions to the nuclear engineering discipline through teaching he was inducted into the georgia institute of technologys academy of distinguished engineering alumni in 1995 in 2005 he was awarded the hps robley d evans commemorative medal in recognition of his long and distinguished career in 2005 poston was appointed by president george w bush to the advisory board on radiation and worker health poston holds a bachelors degree in mathematics from lynchburg college and masters and phd degrees in nuclear engineering from the georgia institute of technology
college station texas &mdash; more than 50 professionals from educational institutions governments and industries throughout the world have come to college station for a three-week seminar in nuclear technology the seminar seminar and training on scaling uncertainty and 3-d coupled code calculations in nuclear technology (3-d suncop) includes lessons in best-estimate methods nuclear reactors and simulations and uncertainty evaluations of the reactors dr w dan turner director of the texas engineering experiment stations energy systems laboratory and dr yassin a hassan associate head and professor in texas a&m universitys department of nuclear engineering welcomed the participants to 3-d suncop on monday jan 22 dr césar malavé assistant dean for recruitment and international programs in texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering presented an overview of the look college and its international recruitment program at a banquet thursday jan 25 the seminar will continue through friday feb 9 mostly in the plaza hotel and suites 3-d suncop is hosted by the department of nuclear engineering and energy systems laboratory and co-organized by the university of pisas department of mechanical nuclear and production engineering for more information about 3-d suncop visit the courses web site
"college station &mdash; computer scientists from texas a&m university and the university of california berkeley have installed a robot in the cache river national wildlife refuge to help natural scientists from cornell universitys laboratory of ornithology and the arkansas game and fish commission find the rare ivory-billed woodpecker the computer scientists &mdash; dr dezhen song assistant professor in texas a&ms department of computer science and dr kenneth y goldberg professor in uc berkeleys departments of electrical engineering and computer sciences and industrial engineering and operations research &mdash; developed the robot automated collaborative observatory for natural environments (acone) to scan the skies near brinkley ark for birds ""if the system can catch any kind of bird thats a success for us "" song said ""but if it catches an ivory-bill thats a bonus"" with a grant from the national science foundation song and goldberg programmed acone to distinguish birds from other objects and only record the birds with its two digital cameras arecont visions av3100s ""its a fast flying object "" song said ""and also the shape of the object &mdash; the shape of the bird &mdash; isnt regular its deformable and from the lighting conditions its very difficult to capture"" the robot stores images of the birds it has recorded in the hard disks of its computer logic supply incs s-625f the computer as well as the cameras are housed in weatherproof cases ""if you put a normal computer out there it wouldnt function very long because of the humidity and the rain "" song said the hard disks are removed routinely from the computer by birdwatcher m david luneau associate professor in the university of arkansas at little rocks department of engineering technology luneau enlists fellow birdwatchers to scrutinize the images stored in the hard disks for a shot of the ivory-billed woodpecker in addition to luneau the arkansas electric cooperative corp arkansas game and fish commission audubon arkansas nature conservancy in arkansas us fish & wildlife service and woodruff electric cooperative corp have volunteered to help song and goldberg install maintain and power acone ""you want to have these people help you "" song said ""otherwise you have a big problem"" song and goldberg took interest in the search for the ivory-billed woodpecker after goldberg read an article about the search in the new york times goldberg contacted the co-leaders of the search from cornells laboratory of ornithology to volunteer systems he and song were developing through their project collaborative observatories for natural environments (cone) ""cornells ornithology lab and arkansas game and fish are crucial members of this team "" goldberg said ""theyve been leading the search in cache river and have a deep understanding of the bird and this environment"" scott henderson director of the arkansas game and fish commission said he looks forward to continued cooperation among groups studying the ivory-billed woodpecker ""its exciting for this agency to be involved in cutting-edge technology as we continue to research and understand what can be done to improve the habitat for this bird "" he said ""were pleased to be working alongside our partners in this ambitious venture"" cone purposes to help natural scientists observe animals &mdash; whether birds or mammals &mdash; in the animals habitats song and goldberg have developed robots to webcast images of animals from the animals habitats to natural scientists computers in addition to the cache river national wildlife refuge theyve installed one of their robots in the richardson bay audubon sanctuary in california song and goldberg have considered sites in alaska and rwanda to observe polar bears and gorillas respectively ""our goal is to use the emerging capabilities of computers and networks to better understand the natural world "" goldberg said ""its very exciting to work with researchers in fields beyond engineering"" the ivory-billed woodpecker seemed to have disappeared sometime in the 1930s or 1940s in 2004 it was reportedly spotted in the cache river national wildlife refuge"
dallas &mdash; dr jeff s haberl associate director of the texas engineering experiment stations energy systems laboratory and a professor of architecture at texas a&m university has been elected a fellow of the american society of heating refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers (ashrae) throughout his career haberl has distinguished himself as an expert on building energy consumption he has developed numerous methods for determining energy consumption from basic building measurements and applied these in the texas loanstar program which gives low-cost loans to municipal and state facilities to install energy conservation measures haberl used his technologies in becoming a founding contributor to the international performance measurement and verification protocol the us environmental protection agency has taken an interest in his current work of creating emissions calculation methods to take energy efficiency and renewable energy savings and calculate emissions reductions fellow ashrae is a membership grade that recognizes distinction in the arts and sciences of heating ventilating air conditioning or refrigeration and is earned through achievement as a researcher designer educator or engineering executive approximately 500 of ashraes 55 000 members are fellows ashrae founded in 1894 is an international organization of 55 000 persons its sole objective is to advance through research standards writing publishing and continuing education the arts and sciences of heating ventilation air conditioning and refrigeration to serve the evolving needs of the public
lubbock texas &mdash; texas a&m engineerings dr g kemble bennett has been named a distinguished engineer by the college of engineering at texas tech university bennett who holds a doctorate in industrial engineering from texas tech will be one of four alumni honored by texas techs college of engineering during its 41st annual distinguished engineer awards ceremony march 30 in lubbock bennett is vice chancellor of engineering for the texas a&m university system director of the texas engineering experiment station dean of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university and a professor of industrial engineering at texas a&m in his position he leads one of the largest engineering education research and service programs in the nation overseeing more than 4 060 employees an operating budget of $282 million and more than $350 million in research expenditures bennett joined the texas a&m faculty in 1986 and prior to his current appointment served as professor and department head in industrial engineering; associate dean; associate vice chancellor; and director of the texas engineering extension service he has also held faculty positions at the virginia polytechnic institute and state university and the university of south florida as well as senior engineering positions at the martin co lockheed research laboratories and the honeywell aerospace corp he is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and has been recognized for his professional contributions by being elected a fellow of both the society of logistics engineers and the institute of industrial engineers he was awarded the eccles medal by the society of logistics engineers for his contributions to logistics engineering and has been recognized as a distinguished educator through the awarding of the albert g holzman award by the institute of industrial engineers in 2006 gov rick perry appointed bennett to a five-year term on the texas board of professional engineers which licenses engineers enforces the texas engineering practice act and regulates the practice of professional engineering in texas recipients of the texas tech university college of engineering distinguished engineer award are honored for making significant societal accomplishments and bringing credit to both texas tech and the engineering profession they were nominated and selected based on factors such as their integrity stature professional distinction areas of interest outside of engineering and ability to inspire others
"college station texas &mdash; dr zoubeida ounaies assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received the national science foundations faculty early career development award (career) for her research in smart polymer nanocomposites the career award will grant ounaies $400 000 through 2012 to advance her research and integrate new teaching policies as her work advances ounaies will further her research on electric field-responsive polymer nanocomposites by advancing the fundamental knowledge and technological impact of structural materials with multiple functionalities insights from this research are a step towards the development of ""engineered materials"" with specially designed properties she said through this research ounaies said she plans to enhance her contributions to the aerospace engineering department and the interdisciplinary program in materials science and engineering she is currently training students in interdisciplinary research on emerging materials and developing courses to enhance the existing materials curriculum in the aerospace engineering department ounaies said her work with nanocomposites leads to materials that have multiple functions for example she also studies the sensing capabilities of nanomaterials which will enhance the ability to detect cracks in the body of an aircraft before catastrophic failures occur her research is designed to reduce cost weight power consumption and design complexity while improving overall performance ""smart structural nanocomposites will enable the development of future lightweight air and space vehicles that sense and adapt to flow and this will produce a more efficient flight "" ounaies said ounaies joined the texas a&m aerospace engineering department in 2005 she is also a faculty in the materials science and engineering program and a researcher in the polymer technology center of the texas engineering experiment station she received her bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering and her phd in engineering science and mechanics all from the pennsylvania state university"
"college station texas - dr bryan rasmussen assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has received a 2007 career award from the national science foundation (nsf) for his dynamics and control research the $400 000 grant will continue through 2012 rasmussens work focuses on developing robust model-based control techniques for nonlinear systems and applying these tools to a diverse set of energy-systems technologies his current focus is on heating ventilation and air-conditioning systems that use two-phase fluids to transfer energy rasmussen said that by effectively modeling the complex dynamics of these processes researchers can find better ways of controlling the systems for increased energy efficiency in his career-sponsored research rasmussen will develop control strategies and diagnostic algorithms for air-conditioning and refrigeration systems particularly those using carbon dioxide (co2) as a refrigerant co2 is at the forefront as a potential replacement for traditional refrigerants which have significantly higher global warming potential however the higher operating pressures of these systems require advanced control and diagnostic strategies to ensure safe efficient operation rasmussen said beyond developing advanced control strategies rasmussen is proposing to use transient data with the dynamic models to identify and diagnose faults before a system fails ""we want to be able to detect the soft system faults that precede catastrophic system failure"" rasmussen said rasmussens laboratory the thermo-fluids control laboratory focuses on using advanced control strategies to achieve higher energy efficiency reduced environmental impact and increased performance for conventional and alternative energy systems career award will go toward building an experimental transcritical vapor compression system using co2 which will complement the existing subcritical system currently in the lab he will also use his career award to emphasize undergraduate research by assessing the efficacy of current programs and coordinating a set of research experiences in his lab these students will then have the opportunity to apply their research results as interns with partnering companies ""research shows that participation in undergraduate research leads to higher retention of students within engineering and increases the likelihood that students will attend graduate school "" rasmussen said ""and we want to encourage that"" rasmussen joined the texas a&m engineering faculty in 2006 he earned a bachelors degree from utah state university and masters and phd degrees from the university of illinois at urbana-champaign all in mechanical engineering"
"college station texas &mdash; his name is kish laszlo kish and his invention could help 007 and other spies keep their communications secure and stealthy kish a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university and his collaborators will discuss their recent work in secure communication during a plenary talk at the fourth annual spie fluctuations and noise symposium may 20-24 in florence italy kish has proposed that a simple pair of resistors on the ends of a communications wire such as a phone or computer line could keep eavesdroppers from intercepting secret messages added electronic disturbances (called ""noise"") or the natural thermal noise produced by the resistors (called johnson noise) makes the scheme function keeping the message unconditionally secret provided the bandwidth of the noise is kept sufficiently narrow picture the line connecting two telephones or computers the sender and receiver at each end of the communication line each have two resistors of different resistance each randomly connects a resistor between their ends of the wire and ground and then the sender begins transmitting the message using the natural thermal noise produced by the resistors provides stealth making the communication difficult to discover and building this unconditionally secure internet-like network using this communicator is easy kish said while the line of communication is open both the sender and receiver monitor the electrical current and voltage fluctuations or johnson noise in the line while the sender and receiver use different resistances an eavesdropper cannot determine the actual location of the resistors without injecting current into the communication channel and measuring the voltage and current changes in different directions this added current gives the eavesdropper away and the transmission is ended before the spy can extract more than a single bit of information then the eavesdropped bit is discarded ""the way the eavesdropper gets discovered is that both the sender and the receiver are continuously measuring the current and voltage and comparing the data "" kish said ""if the current and/or voltage values are different at the two sides at any moment that means that the eavesdropper has possibly broken the code of a single bit thus the communication has to be terminated immediately ""the same current/voltage monitoring method provides a natural defense against the so-called man-in-the-middle-attack which is another unique property of this system because that type of attack hits other communication systems below the belt the kind of man-in-the-middle attack were talking about sets off the current/voltage alarm immediately even before the extraction of a single bit can be completed"" kish calls this the kirchhoff-loop-johnson(-like)-noise (kljn) cipher which he and his collaborators &mdash; robert mingesz and zoltan gingl of the university of szeged (hungary) &mdash; have designed built and tested with the assistance of a texas a&m information technology task force grant the kljn device can now be installed as a computer card similar to ethernet network cards and has performed with 9998 percent fidelity up to a range of 2 000 kilometers (1 250 miles) through a model line this distance is about 12 times longer than the achieved range of direct quantum communication (160 km) kish said ""though there have been several theoretical attempts to break into the kljn line "" kish said ""so far no proposed method has been able to challenge the total security of the idealized kljn system in the kljn device we developed and tested all measured security related parameters were superior to those of quantum communicators"" kish said that the dogma so far has been that only quantum communication can be absolutely secure and according to some estimates about $1 billion is spent annually on quantum communication research but kish has shown that classical communication measuring voltage and current can be more secure if done that wisely and it can be done much more cheaply and more easily than quantum communication and the kljn communicator card is network ready ""its security is superior to quantum communication even at its idealized conditions for several reasons "" kish said ""for example the eavesdropper has to break a few thousands of bits to get discovered in an idealized quantum communication in my idealized scheme the eavesdropper can extract only zero bit without getting discovered"" kish directs the fluctuation and noise exploitation laboratory in the electrical and computer engineering department and is also a researcher in the electrical and computer engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system tees administers kishs research"
"dr bjarne stroustrup professor and college of engineering endowed chair in computer science will preview his paper ""evolving a language in and for the real world: c++ 1991-2006 "" wednesday (may 23) this special seminar will be held at 3 pm in the frank j malina auditorium room 124 of the hr bright building on campus stroustrup is also a researcher in the computer science division of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering rresearch agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system his presentation outlines the history of the c++ programming language from the early days of its iso standardization (1991) through the 1998 iso standard to the later stages of the c++ox revision of that standard (2007) stroustrup said he is eager to have an audience that will ask tough questions during the q&a session following his talk he will present this lecture again at the association for computing machinery sigplan history of programming languages conference in june in san diego a draft of the paper may be found at http://wwwresearchattcom/~bs/hopl-almost-finalpdf stroustrup designed and implemented the c++ programming language and remains active in the iso c++ standards committee working on c++ox he wrote the c++ programming language and the design and evolution of c++ in 2004 he was elected member of the national academy of engineering more biographical information about stroustrup may be found at http://wwwresearchattcom/~bs/biohtml"
"dr laszlo kish a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university is featured in a front page article at new scientist tech for his work in secure communication kish is also a researcher in the electrical and computer engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system the article ""noise keeps spooks out of the loop "" is about kishs novel method of encrypting messages he proposed that uses the natural thermal noise created by resistors kish proposed that a simple pair of resistors on the ends of a communications wire such as a phone or computer line could keep eavesdroppers from intercepting secret messages he created a cipher device which he first proposed in 2005 that exploits a property called thermal noise thermal noise is generated by the natural agitation of electrons within a conductor which happens regardless of any voltage passed through it but it does change depending on the conductors resistance kish said in the article that the thermal properties of a simple wire can be exploited to create a secure communications channel one that outperforms quantum cryptography keys read the article to learn more about kishs device"
"the texas a&m agriculture and engineering bioenergy alliance and chevron corporation have entered into a strategic research agreement to accelerate the production and conversion of crops for manufacturing ethanol and other biofuels from cellulose chevron technology ventures a division of chevron usa inc will support research initiatives over a four-year period through the texas a&m bioenergy alliance a formal partnership combining the collective strengths of the a&m systems two premier research agencies in agriculture and engineering - the texas agricultural experiment station (taes) and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the research initiatives will focus on several technology advancements to produce biofuels including but not limited to: identifying assessing cultivating and optimizing production of second-generation energy feedstocks for cellulose and bio-oils with a focus on non-food crops; characterizing and optimizing the design of dedicated bioenergy crops through advances in genomic sciences and plant breeding; developing integrated logistics systems associated with the harvest transport storage and conversion of bioenergy crops; and developing advanced biofuels processing technologies ""the texas a&m bioenergy alliance has a broad holistic vision focused on developing practical near-term solutions to bioenergy related problems in addition to performing the necessary long-term fundamental research "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m engineering ""forming an alliance with chevron fits well with our research initiatives and allows us to leverage our strengths in biomass and biofuels to transfer new technologies from lab to the public providing real solutions that are economical sustainable and environmentally friendly"" for instance texas a&m bioenergy alliance partners in agriculture have developed exceptional high-yield cellulosic energy crops that can produce significantly more biomass per acre than most alternatives ""the development of biofuels from agricultural feedstocks requires a regional approach and research into many alternatives for the long-term energy needs of our country "" said dr elsa murano vice chancellor and dean of texas a&m agriculture and life sciences ""we have been able to capitalize on decades of existing research into sorghum sugarcane forage and oil-based cropping systems which should provide us with premier dedicated feedstocks for biofuels and renewable energy that are sustainable within existing agricultural production systems"" cellulose is an energy-rich carbohydrate that is the main structural component of green plants found in the stems stalks and leaves one of the primary technical and scientific challenges of making biofuels from cellulose involves designing a low cost method for releasing sugar from cellulose that is bound in the plant cell wall for fermentation into ethanol or other biofuels in addition to the texas a&m agreement chevron¿s biofuels business unit has formed research arrangements with the georgia institute of technology the university of california davis and the colorado center for biorefining and biofuels which is a consortium of national renewable energy laboratory three major colorado universities and other private companies the a&m system is among the largest systems of higher education in the nation through a statewide network of nine universities seven state agencies which include texas a&m bioenergy alliance partners taes and tees and a comprehensive health science center the a&m system is uniquely configured to optimize the integrated development and design of cellulosic and oil-based feedstocks with emerging technologies and sustainable supplies of biomass to address biofuels and renewable energy the texas a&m bioenergy alliance is integrating and focusing its broad-based resources to become a world leader in bioenergy in the past two decades faculty and staff researchers have worked on multiple feedstocks biofuels and bioenergy projects the texas a&m bioenergy alliance is advancing this research toward demonstration projects and eventual commercialization while accelerating the next generation bioenergy"
"malcolm verdict associate director of the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) energy systems laboratory will address high-level government business and financial leaders at the asia clean energy forum in manila philippines june 26-28 his presentation ""30 years of energy efficiency policy in the united states "" will review energy policy at the federal and state levels and include an examination of which policies and financial incentives have worked best since the first oil embargo in 1973 verdict has more than 35 years in the commercial banking and energy efficiency arena and is widely recognized by the western governors association and others as an expert on these matters in the early `90s he helped establish the largest state-funded loan program at the time for financing energy efficiency improvements for state and local governments in texas with more than 350 people from 30 countries expected to attend the asia clean energy forum will provide an opportunity for business financial and government leaders to share information exchange best practices in clean energy financing and devise strategies to scale up clean energy investments energy demand is being fueled by unprecedented economic growth in the pacific and asian region with demand expected to double by 2030"
"(laredo) -- about 40 high school students from laredos two engineering magnet schools are working with researchers in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and west texas a&m university (wtamu) to provide electricity to colonias residents along the us-mexico border who are currently without power dean schneider an engineer with the tees texas center for applied technology in san antonio said that students in the united high school engineering and technology magnet school and the laredo isd magnet for engineering and technology applications (cigarroa high school) are collaborating with tees and wtamu engineers to build and install four wind turbines in 2007 and 2008-one per year from each school two demonstration turbines built by students at each high school were installed may 26 one will power the electric marquee in front of cigarroa high school in south laredo and the other will provide lighting for part of the webb county self-help center where colonia residents can borrow tools the students built the wind turbines from existing plans and will generate a set of instructions that will be translated into spanish to be understandable by typical colonia residents in the us-mexico border region schneider said the end-product of the collaboration is not the turbines themselves but rather the set of instructions the students generate on how to build and install the turbines ""the students did a great job "" schneider said ""i think they learned that while a project may seem easy conceptually details can be killers their minds were stretched in ways that they were not used to thinking and they got to see what it takes to put a working device together when dealing with costs scheduling and other factors that practicing engineers deal with all the time"" david canales director of uniteds engineering magnet school and engineering principles instructor laura rodriguez said the two teams focused on different aspects of the turbines: the united students focused on the turbines alternators for power and the towers while the cigarroa students built the blades and the alternator housing and tail structures for the turbines the students who participate next year will switch roles for the final two turbines while also collecting data on the turbines energy production and performance ""each of us gets to go through the entire process "" rodriguez said canales said tees engineers and researchers from wtamus alternative energy institute are providing hands-on instruction and lectures on wind energy as well as engineering project management and execution ""the lectures tie into what were doing already-science math engineering and even geography such as the places where its best to use wind as an energy source this project just fits in so well because its what weve been doing ""and everyone gets to do it not just seniors or the very top kids this is very much project-based hands-on real-life learning"" lisds engineering magnet school director gus perez said ""that professional engineers working in the field are coming in to provide direct in-class instruction to the students sets apart our magnet programs from most other programs that might just have professionals coming in to do talks or presentations during career days the engineers lectures covered topics ranging from forces magnetism batteries and electric machines to wind energy and blade theory"" in addition to face-to-face interactions the students participated in webcam-based program reviews while constructing the demonstration turbines they discussed issues that arose during construction and provided program briefings with tees engineers in san antonio and wtamu engineers in canyon lisd engineering teacher amanda gonzalez said ""this gives the magnet students working on this project a real-world experience that most students at the university dont even get"" schneider agreed adding that hes hopeful that at least some of the students will pursue careers in engineering in texas ""the neat thing about this program is that it gives students a chance to interact with engineers and to see that engineering affects virtually every aspect of daily life "" he said ""the fact that were building wind turbines is not as important as the fact that theyre learning that engineering can be an exciting and rewarding profession"" schneider said he got the idea for the project when he learned about a similar effort in mexico while attending a conference the project is part of a two-year $100 000 grant from the texas state energy conservation office other project partners include texas a&m universitys center for housing and urban development (chud) in the college of architecture and the webb county department of economic development which operates the county colonia community centers and self-help center"
"from the texas a&m university system college station texas &mdash; gov rick perry announced today that the texas a&m university system has received a $5 million grant from the states emerging technology fund for the texas a&m agriculture and engineering bioenergy alliance ""the texas a&m system has a reputation for excellence in research we strive to maintain and improve upon that reputation by hiring outstanding faculty and providing them with the tools they need to rise to the top of their field "" said michael d mckinney chancellor of the texas a&m system ""this funding from our states leadership will be used for groundbreaking research to create alternative fuels to solve our worlds energy challenges"" the texas a&m agriculture and engineering bioenergy alliance a partnership between the texas agricultural experiment station (taes) and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) will use its grant funds to hire new commercially focused faculty to accelerate the path to market for their innovative research on the next generation of biofuels ""in order to meet our long-term energy needs the development of biofuels from agricultural feedstocks requires research into many alternatives by talented scientists working on texas-based issues "" said dr elsa murano vice chancellor and dean of agriculture and life sciences for the a&m system ""here at texas a&m and within the texas agricultural experiment station we are conducting significant research on several dedicated feedstocks for biofuels and renewable energy such as sorghum sugarcane forage and oil-based cropping systems that are sustainable within existing agricultural production systems ""we are very appreciative of the governor for providing this funding through the emerging technology fund this grant will enable us to bring in additional world-class scientists who can help us significantly accelerate this research and development of biofuels we are going to do our part working with our partners in texas a&m engineering to move biofuels from the fields to our fuel tanks more quickly and efficiently which will provide tremendous benefit to the state of texas "" she said in addition to the etf grant taes tees and texas a&m will provide funds to recruit and retain superior commercially focused faculty in key disciplines to join and enhance the bioenergy-bioproducts development team about the a&m system the a&m system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $26 billion through a statewide network of nine universities seven state agencies and a comprehensive health science center the a&m system educates more than 103 000 students and makes more than 15 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year externally funded research brings in almost $620 million every year and helps drive the state¿s economy about the texas a&m agriculture and engineering bioenergy alliance the a&m system is uniquely configured to optimize the integrated development and design of cellulosic and oil-based feedstocks with emerging technologies and sustainable supplies of biomass to address biofuels and renewable energy over the past two decades faculty and staff researchers have worked on multiple feedstocks biofuels and bioenergy projects the texas a&m bioenergy alliance is advancing this research toward demonstration projects and eventual commercialization while accelerating the next generation bioenergy about the emerging technology fund the etf is a $200 million initiative created by the texas legislature in 2006 to help businesses get innovations to the marketplace recipients of etf funding are selected by a 17-member advisory committee of high-tech leaders entrepreneurs and research experts who review potential projects and recommend projects for funding to the governor lieutenant governor and speaker of the house"
"college station texas &mdash; dr raymond j juzaitis has been named head of the department of nuclear engineering and holder of the sallie and don davis 61 professorship in engineering at texas a&m university this will be effective on august 15 2007 he will also serve as director for the nuclear engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station as well as hold a joint appointment as a visiting professor in the bush school of government and public service juzaitis comes to texas a&m engineering from lawrence livermore national laboratory (llnl) where he has served as associate director for nonproliferation homeland and international security (nhi) since 2004 providing leadership for the largest and fastest growing nuclear engineering department in the nation requires an exceptionally talented individual and dr juzaitis is ideal to serve as the leader of our program said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""dr juzaitis is a seasoned nuclear engineer whose significant contributions in nuclear weapons research will strengthen our nuclear engineering program particularly in the areas of nuclear nonproliferation and national security and defense he will be a tremendous resource for our faculty staff and students and we look forward to welcoming him to campus this fall"" a nuclear and chemical engineer with extensive experience in weapons and computational physics juzaitis has 28 years of experience in the management and execution of national security research and development programs at the department of energy national laboratories his early focus in computational physics paved the way for a broad-based technical career that included nuclear weapons design development testing and evaluation prior to joining llnls nonproliferation program in 2004 juzaitis was at los alamos national laboratory first as a doctoral researcher then as a staff scientist in the weapons program and later holding various senior management positions most recently as associate director for weapons physics during his los alamos tenure he also held several senior advisory positions on assignment including senior technical advisor for the department of energy office of defense programs and special scientific advisor to the office of the assistant to the secretary of defense for atomic energy dr juzaitis is a member of the american nuclear society and sigma xi and has received several prestigious awards from the department of energy juzaitis holds a bachelors degree in chemical engineering from princeton university and masters and phd in nuclear engineering from the university of virginia"
"college station texas &mdash; dr jaime grunlan researcher in the polymer technology center of the texas engineering experiment station has received a 3m nontenured faculty grant for his nanomaterials research project ""transparent electrically conductive nanocomposite thin films"" the award given by 3m recognizes outstanding new faculty for the quality and pertinence of research and is intended to help young faculty achieve tenure remain in their teaching positions and conduct research the unrestricted award provides up to $15 000 a year and may be renewed until tenure is achieved up to a maximum of three years the funds may be used for any purpose in the performance of basic research earlier this year grunlan received a 2007 national science foundation (nsf) career award for his research into controlling the microstructure of high aspect ratio nanoparticles (eg carbon nanotubes) using stimuli-responsive polymers he has developed a way to control the behavior of nanoparticles which could lead to new classes of lightweight engineering composites for applications such as microwave antenna substrates; sensing and actuation transducers for biomedical applications; and highly conductive flexible microelectronic materials grunlan joined tees and the department of mechanical engineering in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university in 2004 he is an assistant professor on the mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering faculties his polymer nano composites lab is currently developing thick and thin film polymer nanocomposites for a variety of applications that include emi shielding gas permeation control and sensors grunlan received a bachelors degree from north dakota state university and a phd from the university of minnesota tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"harlingen texas &mdash; the harlingen consolidated independent school district (hcisd) in cameron county has received a $299 786 improving literacy through school libraries program grant (2007) from the us department of education harlingen cisds grant project opportunities for all students to invest in success (oasis) was developed and submitted through a collaborative effort between harlingen cisd and the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) center for community support (ccs) this federal grant will provide funds for improving harlingen cisds library collections and media resources while addressing student reading and literacy challenges serving 18 000 students of which 89 percent are hispanic and 75 percent are economically disadvantaged much of this grant funding will go toward updating the three highest need elementary schools library materials grant funding will also support expanded library hours for increasing parent and community access to literature technology and trained professionals in an effort to promote growth in literacy and use of library resources these were very competitive national grants and will provide much needed literacy services to students and communities in the district ccss martha opersteny said ""almost 70 percent of the school districts student body is at risk of not completing their high school education this grant will make a big difference because it provides a way for parents to participate in their childs education through their expanded library hours and services"" in recent years there have been many texas schools and educational groups benefiting greatly from the centers grant development services the assistance ccs offers provides these organizations with a competitive edge in obtaining much needed grants which make a big difference in public education across much of texas since 2002 the tees center for community support has worked with 33 texas schools and educational nonprofits in developing grant proposals the result has been $115 million for improvements in public education in texas developed projects deal with issues such as teacher training vocational instruction special services for the blind minority outreach and literacy and math initiatives the tees center for community support provides a broad range of information data and proposal writing services at no cost for texas community-based nonprofit organizations support is available to pursue competitive funding for programs designed to improve the quality of life for texans in all approximately $34 million in federal and private grants have been garnered for texas nonprofit sector with the direct assistance of the center"
"college station texas &mdash; a one-day seminar aimed at anyone involved in the safety of petroleum refinery employees and the protection of us petroleum refineries will be held wednesday (aug 15) in houston the seminar will help those involved in process safety comply with a new osha petroleum refinery process safety management national emphasis program (nep) or the ""refinery nep"" the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) mary kay oconnor process safety center is co-sponsoring the seminar with the texas engineering extension services (teex) professional and regulatory training division this initiative is an attempt to respond to a recent series of disastrous fires and explosions in the refinery industry the seminar will be led by joe howicz an occupational safety and fire protection expert who previously developed the osha training materials for the new refinery nep and other safety experts the invited guest speaker is dean mcdaniel osha region vi administrator"
college station texas - the board of regents of the texas a&m university system appointed dr lee peddicord director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) at its july 27 meeting in college station as tees director peddicord will manage the 852-employee agency a partnership of institutions industries and communities working to strengthen engineering research and development across the state he also is leading the development and implementation of a new nuclear power institute he most recently served as vice chancellor for research and federal relations for the a&m system he formerly headed the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university where he is a longtime professor dr g kemble bennett will continue as vice chancellor and dean of engineering providing oversight of tees the texas transportation institute the texas engineering extension service and the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m
college station texas &mdash; mark s smock has been appointed chief financial officer and controller and assistant agency director for the texas engineering experiment station (tees) agency director dr kl peddicord has announced effective sept 1 smock will be responsible for oversight and coordination of the financial operations of tees mark¿s strong background brings a wealth of experience and expertise i am very much looking forward to working with him he will be an invaluable member of the leadership team in tees peddicord said smock comes to tees from the texas a&m research foundation where he began in 1999 as vice president and treasurer smock was interim chief executive officer and treasurer from july 2003 to december 2004 when he was named president and ceo and charged with overseeing the overall operation and management of the foundation he was previously a supervising assistant state auditor and then audit manager for the state auditor¿s office in austin and later deputy executive director for finance and administration for the texas commission on alcohol and drug abuse a certified public account in texas smock is a member of the american institute of certified public accountants and the texas society of public accountants he also sits on the board of directors of the brazos valley rehabilitation center and the texas institute for the advancement of chemical technology smock earned a bachelors degree in accounting from ferris state college in michigan and an mba from texas a&m university
"college station texas - five clients of the energy systems laboratory including texas a&m university were presented with mega energy saver awards during a ceremony thursday afternoon at the george bush presidential library and museum complex the energy systems laboratory (esl) and texas engineering experiment station (tees) honored the clients who have together saved more than $300 million each client has saved more than $1 million in utility costs while working with esl in enhanced building operations continuous commissioning(r) and energy efficiency improvement programs the five honorees were: alamo community college district (san antonio); texas state energy conservation office (austin); texas health and human services commission (austin); us army medical command (ft sam houston); and texas a&m university texas a&m through its ""campus-wide metering retrofits and continuous commissioning(r) program"" has saved more than $50 million since 1996 with assistance from the esl engineers ""we are pleased to have the opportunity to work on this program with texas a&m "" said outgoing esl director dr w dan turner dr ray bowen president emeritus of texas a&m said ""i have been told that in the last 10 years we have added 4 million square-feet of space on campus but our energy consumption has gone down"" the texas state energy conservation office based in austin has experienced the greatest savings while working with esl through its ""loanstar retrofit program"" the company has provided loans that resulted in utility savings of more than $250 million turner who has been director of esl for the past 22 years was honored during the ceremony for the achievements of the center under his guidance turner is stepping down as director and will be replaced by dr david claridge also during the event dr lee peddicord newly appointed director of tees announced the establishment of a campus working group to investigate the building of a highly energy-efficient facility on the a&m campus the proposed super-high-efficient facility would use sustainable design features materials and renewable energy it would serve as a model for the texas a&m university system and the commercial building industry at-large it would be used as a showplace a living laboratory for advancing building research as well as future office space for the rapidly growing esl staff and engineers the building would also house a new energy efficient building technology application center if the esl is awarded a pending us department of energy grant esl began as a fan-testing laboratory in 1939 and since 1985 has focused on building energy-related research energy efficiency and emissions reduction estimates and has a total annual income for external research and testing exceeding $5 million esl is a division of tees which is a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas - nuclear security experts at texas a&m university and the texas engineering experiment station have been awarded the first $15 million installment of an eventual total of $75 million in funding to develop new sensor systems to detect nuclear or radiological weapons before they can be smuggled into the united states the five-year national science foundation grant will allow a multidisciplinary team of nuclear electrical systems and chemical engineers mathematicians computer scientists and public policy experts at texas a&m to develop revolutionary new sensor technologies that will alert security forces to highly enriched uranium or plutonium hidden in seaborne or vehicle cargoes said dr william s charlton charlton an associate professor in texas a&ms department of nuclear engineering is the director of the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) which is managing the research project ""we are developing a new framework in which sensor technologies are developed as integrated systems combining sensor arrays and signal and information analysis we are investigating first what performance characteristics a detector must have to work most effectively for this unique problem "" charlton said ""then we will use the array of expertise on the project team to develop a detection system that will show order of magnitude improvement in detection capability"" the most important tasks for the new detector system will be to detect very small amounts of radioactivity consistently and determine its location accurately - down to a single shipping container or vehicle charlton said as the engineers and scientists develop the technology for the sensor system policy experts at the institute for science technology and public policy in the george bush school of government and public service and at the department of political science in the college of liberal arts will build on the science and engineering models to develop policy options to enable security agencies to use the equipment most effectively on an international basis said dr david r boyle nsspi deputy director ""the federal sponsors of this competition were concerned about the policy implications of this work and one of nsspis strengths is its ability to work at the interface of technology and policy "" boyle said the funding of this project which involves a team effort by the national science foundation and federal homeland security authorities recognizes texas a&ms expertise in both nuclear and homeland security issues said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""we have worked hard for several years to grow our expertise and capabilities in these areas and this project is proof that we are succeeding "" bennett said bennett noted that us rep chet edwards whose district includes texas a&ms college station campus was instrumental in obtaining funding for establishing the nuclear security science and policy institute at texas a&m nsspi is a joint endeavor of texas a&m university and the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
college station texas &mdash; dr david claridge has been named director of the energy systems laboratory (esl) of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) claridge who is also the leland t jordan professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been associate director of the esl since 1992 a texas a&m faculty member since 1986 his research interests are in building commissioning analysis techniques for building energy data and heat transfer in buildings with more than 300 publications in these areas before coming to tees and texas a&m claridge was an associate professor of civil environmental and architectural engineering at the university of colorado he also worked for the solar energy research institute in golden colo and for the us congressional office of technology assessment claridge is a registered professional engineer in texas and a fellow of the american society of mechanical engineers (asme) he is also a member of the american society of heating refrigerating and air conditioning engineers (ashrae) and the american solar energy society (ases) and a past chair of asmes solar energy division claridge was named a congressional science fellow of the american association for the advancement of science in 1976 a tees fellow in 1997 and 1998 a tees senior fellow in 1999 and received a faculty distinguished achievement in research award from the texas a&m university association of former students in 2003 he has received the distinguished service award and the ek campbell award of merit from ashrae for his outstanding service and achievement in teaching he has won the best paper award on conservation and solar buildings from the asme solar energy division three times claridge holds a bachelors degree in engineering physics from walla walla college and a masters degree and a phd in physics from stanford university since 1985 the tees energy systems laboratory has focused on building energy-related research energy efficiency and emissions reduction estimates and has a total annual income for external research and testing exceeding $5 million esl is a division of tees the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system
dr kenneth r hall has been appointed associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) by the board of regents of the texas a&m university system today (sept 28) at their meeting in college station hall is a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university a regents professor and holder of the jack e and frances brown chair in engineering an internationally recognized expert in the area of thermodynamics hall has 224 refereed publications he also has received 12 patents in areas that include natural gas flow measurement and conversion of natural gas into liquid fuels and other chemicals as tees associate director hall will emphasize interdisciplinary research projects and oversee tees centers and institutes
"college station texas energy conservation is a hot topic and texas a&m universitys department of mechanical engineering and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) are doing their part to educate students on how to successfully apply energy conservation techniques in real-world situations texas a&m is one of 26 universities in the united states to run an industrial assessment center (iac) which is a part of a nationally sponsored program by the us department of energy the iac which on average has about 15 aggie engineering students working for it each year provides no-cost studies of manufacturing plants within 150 miles of college station analyzing a plants energy waste and productivity issues students go into various businesses and conduct a one-day walkthrough analysis and then prepare a report for the company making specific recommendations to the plants concerning energy cost reduction waste cost reduction and productivity enhancing practices the plant can implement while plants benefit from the possible cost reductions students who do the analysis benefit from hands-on training and gain valuable industry experience industrial assessment centers give student workers conservation-based attitudes and skills said dr warren heffington an associate professor in mechanical engineering and founding director of the iac ""when they graduate many go to work in conservation the iac is a fine teaming and leadership laboratory in an environment closer to the real world than many in academia our students for example work for wages not grades and their schedule is based on a government contract not directly on their semester beginning and end texas a&ms iac program has been in existence for 21 years and more than 200 engineers have passed through its doors making it one of the most successful of the 26 university-run programs some really strong texas aggie student engineers have worked for the center over the years heffington said ""as the backbone of the center they naturally caused the texas a&m iac to show up well when it came time to compare us with others around the nation"" as a result of the success of texas a&ms iac malcolm verdict who is an associate director of the tees energy systems laboratory (esl) was asked to testify before the house science subcommittee on energy and environment last month verdict testified on teess behalf about the valuable impact of the iac program the current limitations to the program and recommendations to build upon the success of the program to help meet the energy and environmental needs of industrial facilities and others during the 21st century this is a great program and it is at the heart and soul of what we do verdict said ""it is unique in that students go into the field and do energy efficiency analysis i cant think of a better program to educate the next generation of energy efficiency experts"" the texas a&m iac has conducted visits to most of the industries in bryan and college station but the majority of its work has been done in the houston area we are fortunate to be near the texas gulf coast whose industries use more energy than any corresponding area in the country heffington said ""we have recommended conservation projects with savings totaling about $50 million per year and we have data showing that plants have realized about $25 million per year in cost savings"""
"college station texas - the bg hindes dredge/tow carriage the only one of its kind on a us university campus will be christened friday oct 12 at the reta and bill haynes 46 coastal engineering laboratory in the texas a&m university research park the barrett and margaret hindes foundation provided the lead gift to design and construct the laboratory dredging carriage faculty and students will use the carriage to study and recommend more efficient and environmentally friendly methods for maintaining the nations waterways other major donors are oilfield electric marine inc (oem) and digital automation and control systems inc (dacs) giw industries inc krohne ohmart/vega corp and dredging supply co inc donated the dredge pump magnetic flow meter nuclear density gauge and cutter respectively significant contributions were made by peter dejong of dacs primary design engineer; nick krippner oem electrical design; steve sonye dacs data acquisition and carriage control systems; and kevin williams krw technologies former oem president ""research and commercial testing of different systems equipment and processes can now be investigated using the bg hindes carriage in a controlled laboratory environment to advance and improve dredging practices "" said dr robert e randall director of the texas a&m center for dredging studies the 4-inch suction by 3-inch discharge dredge pump system dredge ladder and cradle facilitates modeling of hopper and cutter suction dredge in a water tank that is 150 feet long 12 feet wide and 10 feet deep an observation well permits viewing of dredging operations in the tanks 25- by 12- by 5-foot sediment pit an additional pumping system can provide water flow through the tank at 35 000 gallons per minute to simulate water currents the dredge carriage which can be controlled in the automatic or manual mode moves at speeds up to 4 knots (46 mph) to help measure hydrodynamic forces on coastal and offshore models sensors provide data via an acquisition system ""the dredge carriage is being used currently to investigate methods to measure and minimize turbidity or suspended sediments in the water column "" said dr billy l edge wh bauer professor of dredging and head of the coastal and ocean engineering division in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m ""it was recently used to assist the us navy in evaluating the effect of discharges on turbidity from vessels in shallow waters with low clearance "" edge said the late barrett hindes a san francisco native graduated from massachusetts institute of technology in mechanical engineering in 1922 a respected dredging engineer and businessman hindes worked for the san francisco bridge co ultimately as president until the company was dissolved in 1956 hindes served as captain in the us navy ""seabees"" during world war ii and was charged with the responsibility for harbor clearing and development across the pacific since the time of his death in 1964 the foundation has been administered by hindes sons peter and scott hindes the haynes coastal engineering lab at the texas a&m research park will host an open house from 3:30-6 pm with the christening ceremony at 4 and demonstrations following the event is open to the public"
"kingsville texas - the texas engineering experiment station (tees) has collaborated with an environmental research center based in the frank h dotterweich college of engineering at texas a&m university-kingsville to garner the centers second five-year $5 million grant from the national science foundations centers of research excellence in science and technology (crest) program a&m-kingsvilles center for research excellence in science and technology-research on environmental sustainability of semi-arid coastal areas (crest-ressaca) was one of only two established crest programs in the nation to receive a $5 million renewal grant this year the other is based at the university of puerto rico rio piedras campus the a&m-kingsville center was founded when it received its first $5 million grant in 2002 tees the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system assisted in securing the grant which it now administers as the universitys collaborator on the crest-ressaca tees director dr k lee peddicord said ""tees congratulates texas a&m university-kingsville and is pleased to work with the university to obtain this award this is just one example of how the agency supports engineering research across the state the crest renewal will provide greater opportunities in south texas for environmental engineering students to participate in nationally recognized research"" the crest program helps minority-serving institutions enhance their research abilities the program addresses the significant under-representation of minorities in science technology engineering and mathematics a&m-kingsville is classified as a hispanic-serving institution which is defined as a college or university with hispanic enrollment of at least 25 percent; a&m-kingsvilles hispanic enrollment is more than 60 percent a&m-kingsvilles crest is the only one in the nation that focuses on environmental sustainability of semi-arid coastal areas its work is carried out by a group of a&m-kingsville faculty from the environmental engineering department other engineering departments and faculty from other disciplines such as physics and geosciences dr kuruvilla john associate dean of the college of engineering is the director of the center ""i was very excited when we got the news "" said john about receiving the second grant ""in particular i was excited for the students the faculty and the staff that have been an integral part of crest-ressaca success the continued funding acknowledges that the nsf recognizes our success at meeting our development goals"" the new grant furthers the centers efforts to be self-sustaining john added ""we will build on the success weve had in the first five years to become a world-class entity that can sustain itself beyond the grant funding "" said john ""in the next five years we want crest-ressaca to be the first name people think of when it comes to research on environmental sustainability of semi-arid coastal areas"" the grant funding will further the centers work in four major areas: increase the number of environmental engineering doctoral degrees to between 15 and 20: in its first five years crest-ressaca has provided support to graduates who have earned four phds 16 ms degrees and 24 undergraduate degrees currently the total number of students supported by crest-ressaca hispanic and non-hispanic equals 59 undergraduates 25 ms students and 12 phd students ""we dont just want to mentor students "" john said ""we want them to graduate and be eminently employable and contributing to our society"" also undergraduate research opportunities in crest-ressaca have generated a lot of interest among students in environmental engineering and the college of engineering is establishing a bs program in the field as well as a new ms degree in environmental management science both scheduled to be introduced in 2008 continue environmental research in the coastal bend and rio grande valley: crest-ressaca research funded by the grant includes assessing air quality in corpus christi and the coastal bend; increasing the effectiveness of texas largest reverse osmosis desalination plant located in brownsville; finding natural solutions to remove odorous gases from the emissions of wastewater plants in brownsville; supporting groundwater management districts by using established water resources models; and using compost products to enhance the nutrition and water-holding capabilities of soil in the lower rio grande valley working alongside faculty in these projects are undergraduate and graduate students earning both professional and scholastic experience in the lab and out in the field increase partnerships in the us and mexico to address environmental issues: partnerships planned for the next five years include sandia national laboratories who will work with crest-ressaca on water resource management and desalination research; the university of texas at brownsville whose faculty are involved in crest-ressaca undergraduate research efforts; and texas a&m international university in laredo where two environmental engineering researchers have established joint projects focusing on water contaminants in addition the center will continue educational and research partnerships south of the border the number of students from mexico pursuing master¿s or doctoral degrees at a&m-kingsville has nearly tripled since 2003 due in large part to collaborative efforts through crest-ressaca also some research work of the center - in groundwater management air emission control and production of fuel from algae and citrus waste - addresses environmental issues faced in mexico this research was shared with mexican scientists lawmakers and students at a crest-ressaca conference in november 2006 entitled ""environmental sustainability: us-mexico issues "" held in monterrey mexico the longest-running partnership crest-ressaca has is with the texas engineering experiment station this state agency part of the texas a&m university system has contributed to preparation of both nsf grant proposals and will stay with crest-ressaca as its fiscal agent for the centers development continue public education efforts for lawmakers educators and the public: crest-ressaca shares its work with others outside of the field of environmental engineering the centers annual conference brings lawmakers and the public together to hear center researchers discuss their projects and the implications of their findings the centers faculty work with a host of city and regional governments such as conducting air quality studies with the city of corpus christi and the texas commission on environmental quality and storm water management studies for the lower rio grande valley municipalities crest-ressaca research work and the faculty behind it will continue to be highly involved in two college of engineering summer programs maymester brings area community college students to the campus for two weeks each may where they receive hands-on research experience as guest members of science math and engineering research teams including those at crest-ressaca the research experience for teachers program enables crest-ressaca and other engineering faculty to share their research efforts with area middle and high school educators who then take that experience into their classrooms for their students"
"college station texas - texas a&m university and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) have been awarded almost $2 million to date from the national science foundation to increase retention rates among first-year engineering science and math majors the five-year science technology engineering and mathematics talent expansion program (step) aims to increase the number of graduates with science engineering and mathematics degrees by a minimum of 10 percent through an emphasis on retention of first-year students tees assisted the university in developing the grant proposal and will be the fiscal agent for this project tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system the step program in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m helps students understand what engineering is and whether they want to continue their engineering studies after their first year the program enables students to experience hands-on learning on the first day of class through new curricula in freshmen courses the college redesigned foundations of engineering i the freshman introductory course to the engineering profession to incorporate development of skills in teamwork problem solving and design through hands-on learning the college places freshmen in the course by their major and departments design the projects to complement student interests one class for example begins building bridges on the first day students use magnetic balls and joints to build the bridges the focus of the course however is to give students the skills necessary to complete the project mathematically and successfully build a strong reliable bridge on the first try by moving away from popsicle sticks and trial and error students get a glimpse into what being an engineer is really like step focuses on a three-pronged approach which encompasses the collaboration between engineering math and physics the step program enables collaboration by improving communication between the departments said dr arun srinivasa director of the texas a&m step program and an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering in the past teachers in each department would use different words for essentially the same thing and through our communication we have worked to standardize terms so that students can see the connection across their curriculum srinivasa said ""its not three different classes its three aspects"" the integrated program enables engineering students to gain an understanding of why different courses are essential to their growth as engineers students believed that freshman courses in physics and calculus were weed-out courses when in reality understanding of these subjects is an essential foundation for their education srinivasa said step has helped the college to increase retention of students through the first-year of study however many other changes have occurred to facilitate this increase including engineering living learning communities the regent scholars program changes in admissions policies increased help available for students demographics and the current job market &mdash; all of which influence student retention the main challenge we face with our program is the sheer numbers of students we are trying to reach srinivasa said ""its easy to come up with a concept but implementing it across the board to so many students has been a challenge step focuses on this implementation to the large common group not to the exception we are trying to retain students in the program that in the past we would have lost"
college station texas a team of researchers from the spacecraft technology center and the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university has received a competitive contract award from the air force research laboratorys space vehicles directorate at kirtland afb in new mexico to assess space-based sensors that contribute to space situational awareness the overall $289 million award includes a funded 18-month project with an option for an additional 18-month effort the stc part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) advances spacecraft system technologies from basic research to practical application dr frederick best directs the center the stc team will evaluate the utility of using small space-based optical systems such as star trackers to increase a spacecrafts awareness of its surrounding space environment star trackers which use pictures of the star field to help determine the orientation of a spacecraft are a class of sensors being considered by the air force and other space agencies for dual-use the air force is looking for ways to augment its space surveillance sensor network by using existing spacecraft sensors or inexpensive new concepts in this supporting role this project follows a 2005 study performed by the stc team for the air force that evaluated the star tracker dual-use concept for feasibility and produced some preliminary software that could be used by these sensors the stc also received a subcontract from an industry partner in june 2007 to test this software with an existing star tracker camera the recently awarded air force contract will include an assessment of key sensor and orbital parameters that bound the problem testing of various sensors to determine a baseline and development of an optimized sensor concept that uses readily available sensor components hardware and software appropriate for this concept will be assembled and tested at the stc sensor test lab the outcome of the project will address performance questions the air force has about this dual-use sensor mission and make possible the opportunity to test this type of sensor on orbit the stc project will be led by charles (chip) hill stc associate director for systems integration who has a broad industry and government background in aerospace projects key contributions will be made by members of the stc staff including dr thomas talley and magdalini lagoudas key faculty participants from the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m are dr thomas pollock and dr daniele mortari as well as their graduate students stcs dr igor carron aerospace engineerings dr adonios karpetis and the college of architectures dr ergun akleman will pursue supporting research efforts the project will also include industry partners the stc/texas a&m team will be able to make a significant contribution in determining how spacecraft can be used more autonomously and efficiently leading to improved safety and security of us space systems
"prairie view texas - prairie view a&m university has been awarded a $1 million three-year education research grant from the national science foundation (nsf) to identify and evaluate the factors that contribute to the success of academically gifted black students in science technology engineering and mathematics (stem) who are enrolled at historically black colleges and universities (hbcus) college of engineering faculty members from prairie view a&m university felecia mcinnis nave and sherri s frizell will partner with three faculty members in the college of education and human development at texas a&m university to conduct the study representing texas a&m university-college station in this effort will be: fred a bonner associate professor department of educational administration; mary v alfred associate professor department of educational administration; and chance w lewis associate professor department of teaching learning and culture the texas engineering experiment station (tees) assisted in developing the grant proposal and administers the grant tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and is a member of the texas a&m university system the title of the study is an empirical investigation of the success factors impacting african-american students in engineering and technology at historically black universities dr felecia m nave assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering will serve as the principal investigator and dr sherri s frizell assistant professor in the department of computer science will serve as the co- principal investigator according to frizell ""this project has the potential to have a significant impact in strengthening the education and research pipeline of stem students at hbcus and other institutions prairie view a&m university is a noted leader in producing outstanding african-american engineers and scientists"" the goal of this collaborative education research project is to identify factors through a mixed method approach that utilizes both qualitative and quantitative measures that most significantly contribute to the success of gifted black students in stem disciplines at hbcus this study will be implemented in an effort to better understand how to structure successful collegiate experiences to increase the quantity and quality of students who graduate with stem degrees more specifically this research endeavor will target students who have excelled in stem areas at hbcus few research studies have focused on minority under-representation and under-achievement in science and engineering to directly address the needs of high achieving minority students many of whom struggle as much as their peers who are not identified as high achievers researchers feel the impact of this study will be far-reaching and serve as a catalyst for changes in success rates among blacks in stem disciplines many programs in stem areas have sought viable solutions to the problems associated with student achievement gaps particularly among students of color a study of this nature will provide concrete empirical data to identify and support viable factors that lead to student achievement particularly for academically gifted black students programmatic initiatives policies and procedures can be developed and subsequently implemented using these factors as a framework researchers at pvamu and texas a&m university will further develop strategies in the areas of academic affairs and student affairs the research team seeks to find effective and cognitive variables which will be measured through six factors: curriculum teaching style learning style campus programming student-life and out-of-classroom engagements nave reports that ""a major strength of this partnership is that it brings together the expertise of outstanding faculty who represent two dynamic colleges with a history of producing cutting edge research"" ""texas a&m university is a noted leader in research; thus it is important to connect to faculty members at the institution who can provide essential feedback and information for this project "" continues nave as graduates of hbcus both nave and frizell possess first-hand knowledge and understanding of the hbcu culture and the critical role they play in assisting black students in reaching their academic and professional goals the first phase of the project will include studies at the ten four-year universities accredited by the accreditation board for engineering and technology including prairie view a&m once the initial study is complete phase two of the project will include a dissemination of a quantitative study at the remaining hbcus in the partnership with stem programs"
"college station texas - the texas engineering experiment station (tees) will share in $95 million that was secured by us representative chet edwards for defense projects at texas a&m under the final 2008 defense appropriations bill which was signed into law by president bush on nov 13 the funding will be used for five key defense research projects at the university ""i am very pleased that the final defense bill includes my request for $95 million for five key defense research projects at texas a&m "" said edwards a senior member of the house appropriations committee ""these defense projects are part of a long-term plan to enhance and strengthen texas a&ms historic partnership with the department of defense these priority programs will strengthen our nations defense improve our homeland security and support jobs and economic growth in the brazos valley"" dr g kemble bennett texas a&m vice chancellor and dean of engineering said ""the single most-critical component needed to make significant and timely advances in defense-related technology is funding thanks to the tireless and faithful efforts of congressman edwards this funding will enable the best and brightest minds among texas a&m engineering to continue finding new solutions to defense-related challenges and ultimately better protect the citizens of texas and the nation"" edwards secured $12 million to help texas a&m work with the air force to develop a sensor for spacecraft to detect objects in their surroundings that may threaten us intelligence operations ""these space surveillance tools will protect american spacecraft and satellites as more and more countries gain access to space it is important for us to track objects that come close to our incredibly valuable spacecraft and their important missions "" said edwards edwards secured $800 000 for texas a&m to work with the navy on the development of technology to use lasers to detect biochemical agents in the atmosphere over a battlefield or community ""this important project will help protect installations like fort hood from attack our troops in combat against chemical and biological attacks and could be used to protect our cities and communities from terrorists using chemical and biological agents "" said edwards ""this is a revolutionary capability that would fill a critical unmet need that would help protect our troops in battle "" said edwards edwards also secured $800 000 for research that will help protect and extend the life of rotor blades on military aircraft operating in deserts in iraq and afghanistan ""the degrading of rotor blades in desert environments has been become a major problem for the department of defense and this project will help the military protect against sand and water erosion to keep more aircraft available for military operations "" said edwards edwards is also working on important defense projects that partner texas a&m university and fort hood in killeen edwards helped add $3 million to continue a program he has supported for years between texas a&m and fort hood which has been recognized by the texas council on environmental quality for its positive environmental benefits ""this project improves training grounds after they have been eroded and degraded from tank and training operations on base this is another example of a&m working with fort hood to help our troops train so that they can carry out their mission successfully when they reach the battlefield "" said edwards dr elsa murano vice chancellor and dean of agriculture and life sciences texas a&m university system said ""these funds will help fort hood maintain and repair training lands by using innovative control measures developed by texas a&m agriculture scientists i strongly support this cooperation and i appreciate the leadership of congressman edwards who has been instrumental in improving the landscape on fort hood to better support mechanized training"" edwards added $1 million to allow a&m to help fort hood improve training by enhancing their digital command and control systems and simulation capability ""this project which i have supported for a number of years has dramatically improved the effectiveness of our army tanks in combat "" said edwards finally edwards also secured $27 million for a joint waco va-ft hood-texas a&m health research program that will examine the underlying causes of post traumatic stress disorder (ptsd) edwards created the program with $3 million he secured in the 2006 defense healthcare bill ""the waco va and ft hood are uniquely positioned to conduct world-class research with the department of defense and texas a&m to find improved treatments and cures for veterans suffering from mental illness and post traumatic stress disorder "" said edwards ""the close proximity of a military installation that has sent over 40 000 soldiers to iraq and a va hospital that is a nationally recognized center of excellence for veterans mental health care cannot be matched anywhere else in the country "" said edwards chairman of the military construction and veterans affairs appropriations subcommittee dr nancy dickey president texas a&m health science center said ""representative edwards continues to enhance the well-being of our soldiers and the effectiveness of our universities as demonstrated by the funding garnered for the post traumatic stress disorder project as a result of funding secured by mr edwards the medical profession will better understand the causes and treatments of ptsd and will develop mechanisms to assure access to effective diagnosis and treatment for our returning soldiers with ptsd as the mother of a veteran as a physician and as the president of a health sciences university i thank chet edwards for the work he continuously does to improve the lives of texans"""
"college station texas - if you take the time to sit down and speak with a student enrolled in foundations of engineering i the freshman introductory course to engineering you would get a very different picture of the engineering program at texas a&m university than five years ago this phenomenon is occurring in math science and engineering courses across the state through the partnership of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and four universities in the texas a&m university system changes are being made to increase enrollment and retention in these degree programs texas a&m university west texas a&m university texas a&m university-kingsville and texas a&m university-corpus christi all tees regional divisions have received science technology engineering and mathematics talent expansion program (step) grants from the national science foundation ""tees assisted faculty and administrators at each of the four institutions to develop the proposals and grant concepts based on the needs of the individual campuses and their plans to increase enrollment in science engineering and mathematics particularly among students who are first generation or underrepresented in these majors "" said dr k l peddicord director of tees currently there are seven step programs in texas and four are through the tees/a&m system partnership resulting in more than $45 million in federal funds brought into the a&m system texas a&ms step program aims to increase the number of college graduates with physics engineering and mathematics degrees a minimum of 10 percent by enabling students to experience hands-on learning on the first day of class through new curricula in freshmen courses dr arun srinivasa a principal investigator of the texas a&m step program said ""the step program has been an excellent transformation for texas a&m in engineering we now have department heads and distinguished faculty teaching freshman courses its an exciting thing"" west texas a&ms step program targets recruitment of students not enrolled in science engineering and mathematics degree programs the program includes a redesign of core mathematics and science courses and dissemination of career information in these courses ""both actions should attract undecided and non-majors who are enrolled in these core courses "" said dr pamela lockwood a principal investigator of the west texas a&m step program ""[our program] also targets community college students with periodic visits to their campuses the office of admissions will host a `west texas a&m day at each of our two main feeder institutions -- south plains college and amarillo college -- this year"" at texas a&m-kingsville emphasis is on recruiting hispanic students by encouraging their interest in chemistry physics engineering and mathematics bachelors degree programs the aim is to provide a trained workforce for the state the program also fosters efficient transfer for students from collaborating two-year institutions such as palo alto college south texas community college and del mar college and at texas a&m-corpus christi hispanics in the coastal bend region are encouraged to pursue degrees in science engineering technology and mathematics ""our goals are to increase the retention and quality of science students by implementing researched-based best practices in teaching the establishment of a mentoring program and connecting mathematics science and english in a relevant and meaningful way "" said dr jose giraldo the principal investigator of the program at a&m-corpus christi tees continues to work closely with all four institutions in summer 2007 tees brought all four participating institutions together in dallas the meeting provided an opportunity for the principal investigators and senior faculty to get to know each other to build a working relationship and to share information on the projects successes and failures ""tees has been instrumental with enabling information flow between departments as to what is going on and what has been implemented elsewhere they have helped each project to know that they are not alone in their endeavors and that other programs have similar problems as well "" srinivasa said not only has tees worked to encourage communication between the universities but also helped each university prepare its grant proposal for nsf ""the tees strategic research development office was instrumental in the funding of this project "" lockwood said ""our college had an exceptional group of faculty members with some innovative ideas for retaining students but our faculty members teach 12 hours each semester and have limited experience in writing federal funding proposals ""the tees grants office turned our ideas and data collection on our current majors and projections for the future into a competitive proposal"" tees has continued to assist each university with administrative budgetary issues and personnel changes giraldo said ""after the proposal was funded tees has continued to assist us with budget execution this has been a positive collaboration"""
"college station texas- the first friday lecture for december features ""the strength and fracture of nanocomposites "" presented by dr dan davis the lecture will be friday (dec 7) in room 110 of the koldus building lunch will be provided to registrants at 11:45 am and the lecture will begin at noon davis is director of operations of texas institute for intelligent bio-nano materials and structures for aerospace vehicles (tiims) and tees research professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university tiims is a collaboration of five texas universities conducting research in bio-nanomaterials fabrication characterization modeling and simulation for future nasa and aerospace systems tiims also has a focus on producing the next generation of aerospace engineers and scientists for nasa in its mission to return to the moon and beyond in addition to his research activities in nanomaterials characterization davis has the charge to promote the education thrust of tiims he has collaborated with a small minority owned business clarkson aerospace and the us air force laboratory to form the air force minority leaders program (mlp) this program is a congressional sponsored program that promotes materials and manufacturing and sensors research at over 20 universities including many historically black colleges and universities davis has held engineering faculty administrative and research positions at temple university the pennsylvania state university new jersey institute of technology and texas southern university his teaching interests are in engineering mechanics structures and materials courses davis primary research interest is on the macro-micro-mechanical behavior of materials under complex thermal-mechanical loads more recently his interest has focused on the mechanics of advanced nanocomposite multifunctional materials davis research interest in education focuses on integrating design and computer/internet-based technologies throughout the curriculum to improve learning and course delivery the first friday lecture series is a program of the african american professional organization held the first friday of the month and is sponsored by the division of research and graduate studies to register for the event click here contact anita dotson at 845-1812 or a-dotson@tamuedu for additional information to learn more about the african american professional organization visit their web site"
college station texas - space engineering institute (sei) students from texas a&m university texas a&m-kingsville and texas a&m-commerce presented their fall 2007 projects nov 16 sei is a center of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) seis undergraduate research program funded by nasa focuses on student retention in engineering especially students from underrepresented groups (women and ethnic minorities) the program is in its fifth year with more than 50 engineering undergraduate students enrolled at the three different universities students join sei during their freshman year and are placed on interdisciplinary teams to work on applied research projects sponsored by nasa the texas a&m materials team worked with a bio-sensor technology developed by dr allison ficht and dr xiaofeng kang at the department of molecular and cellular medicine at texas a&m the team developed a design that will test multiple biosensors on a single zero-gravity flight to evaluate the technology for its use on space exploration the team submitted their proposal to nasa and hopes to be selected for flight testing in spring 2008 team mentors are ficht kang and graduate student erin bishop the team includes jahaziel chavira senior mechanical engineering; jennifer kirchner senior aerospace engineering; daniel grimes senior computer science; katy westhoff junior aerospace engineering; opeyemi ijagbemi junior ocean engineering; nikhil bhatnagar sophomore aerospace engineering; norma horn sophomore mechanical engineering; and brannon veal sophomore electrical engineering the texas a&m pretreatment team identified a non-toxic pretreatment alternative to enable water reclamation for long term space applications the team completed testing with minimum concentrations of acetic and glycolic acids and evaluated the use of pyruvic and citric acids as possible pretreatment candidates in addition they evaluated the use of a bioreactor to assess pretreatment chemical toxicity the team will present their findings at the earth and space conference of american society of civil engineering in march 2008 team mentors are dr karen pickering from nasa jsc and texas a&m graduate student julianna camacho the team includes sara guest senior chemical engineering; moriah thompson senior biomedical engineering; marco cienega jr junior mechanical engineering; julianne larson junior aerospace engineering; emily dossman freshman aerospace engineering; warnessa freeman freshman chemical engineering; natalie pilzner freshman aerospace engineering; and leann smith freshman biomedical engineering the texas a&m-kingsville mechanical battery team designed a safe efficient mechanical battery that stores energy in a mechanical form for use on the space station the team presented a mechanical battery design which includes a electromagnetic clutch braking system housing and mounting plates of the gear system composite strips and transformer/electrical configuration they completed modeling and testing the composite strips in both tension and torsion in addition they updated and optimized the gear design to accommodate tension elements the team led by dr larry peel and graduate student dustin grant includes javier lozano senior mechanical engineering; victor castillo senior mechanical engineering; hector hernandez senior electrical engineering; krystal gunter junior electrical engineering; and luis muratalla sophomore mechanical engineering the texas a&m-kingsville laundry in space team designed a process to wash disinfect and dry lightly soiled clothing in the micro-gravity environment of the international space station the team developed a design that uses a vacuum-based approach to remove soil and stains from laundry the design was tested improved with new materials to remove leakages and tested again results show a vacuum process alone is not sufficient to wash and dry clothing in the desirable amount of time the team researched alternative approaches to improve effectiveness of the process they will incorporate agitation and a multi-stage process to improve their design the team also led by peel and grant includes trey evans sophomore mechanical engineering; victoria bailey freshman mechanical engineering; michael gutierrez freshman mechanical engineering; and eli hatfield freshman electrical engineering the texas a&m tele-operation team is working to complete projects such as successfully tele-operating a texas a&m truck and developing a 3d environment at the space engineering institute the team was able to setup the cave hardware and landform software gps-reference models and wireless network connections this enabled them to send and receive data and to establish a connection with the gps and imu units of the texas a&m truck the team led by dr tamas kalmar-nagy and stephen glenn includes angelo bianchini senior mechanical engineering; amanda collins senior aerospace engineering; john quiñones senior chemical engineering; david roden senior computer science; david taylor senior aerospace engineering; ernest everett junior mechanical engineering; agustin maqui junior aerospace engineering; marcus payne junior aerospace engineering; christine tipton sophomore biomedical engineering; jason york sophomore aerospace engineering; and jc reeves freshman aerospace engineering the texas a&m robotics team designed and demonstrated the cooperative lifting and transportation of a construction object using two robots the team presented their modeling and simulation approach for robot kinematics the use of an overhead camera for inertial measurements odometry error investigation and mitigation kalman-filter simulations and simple path-planning algorithms the team participated in the texas space grant consortium design challenge nov 20 where they received first place in team dynamics second place in oral presentation third place in project model and runners-up in best technical paper the team led by dr johnny hurtado and graduate student lesley weitz includes jesse bowes senior computer science; kristen holmstrom senior aerospace engineering; dennis underwood senior aerospace engineering; matt wilson senior computer engineering; kelli boehringer junior aerospace engineering; amy bolon junior mechanical engineering; roy palacios junior electrical engineering; tyler thurston junior aerospace engineering; and albert soto freshman mechanical engineering a&m-commerce fluorescent microscopy using leds team designed and built a portable fluorescent microscope for counting bacteria the team submitted their presentation but was not able to attend due to class conflicts they developed a prototype automated the sample analysis and investigated the confirmation of the specificity of bacterial detection currently they are working towards testing the prototype in nasas microgravity environment the team led by dr frank miskevich includes jeremy harr tiffany selvidge sophie metafaria and dale moore for more information on the sei program contact director magda lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu
college station texas - dr c roland haden received the service award from the mary kay oconnor process safety center (mkopsc) a texas engineering experiment station (tees) center housed within the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university the award was established to honor and recognize individuals who have contributed to the success of the center and who have played a significant role in advancing the mission of the center haden is a former vice chancellor for engineering and former dean of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m he also served as director of tees haden retired from texas a&m in 2002 but still holds the title of professor emeritus haden received his phd from the university of texas at austin in electrical engineering he has held teaching and administrative positions at the university of texas university of oklahoma louisiana state university and arizona state university haden was named fellow of the american society for engineering education (asee) and the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) he has received numerous awards including the prestigious donald e marlowe award from asee in 1998 in which he was honored as a role model in advancing engineering education and the engineering profession he was also awarded the lamme award in 2007 he has worked as a consultant to various firms and educational institutions and was appointed by the former gov george w bush in 1996 to be a member of the governors science and technology council he was also chair for the asee public policy committee he serves on the board of directors for inter-tel inc and crosstex energy mlp haden has authored more than 100 publications including four books he co-authored or edited
college station texas - dr w john lee professor and holder of the lf peterson endowed chair in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering received the designation of regents professor for 2006-2007 during a recent meeting of the texas a&m university system board of regents lee who holds a joint appointment with the texas engineering experiment station (tees) was one of five texas a&m professors who were named regents professors the board established the regents professor award program in 1996 to recognize employees who have made exemplary contributions to the university or agency and to the people of texas to date 106 faculty members have been named regents professors recipients received a $9 000 stipend a commemorative medallion and a certificate during a dinner thursday (dec 6) that was held in their honor lee came to texas a&m in 1977 and was the initial director of the petroleum engineering departments distance learning program he received the distinguished achievement in continuing education award in 2001 from the texas a&m association of former students and was recently appointed academic engineering fellow by the securities and exchange commissions division of corporation finance
"a new statewide nuclear power institute headquartered at texas a&m university plans to make sure the growing texas nuclear power industry has the engineers and technicians it will need as it expands in the coming decades establishment of the institute a cooperative effort of texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and other organizations around the state was approved thursday (dec 6) by the texas a&m university system board of regents during its meeting in college station in particular npi activities will support statewide recruiting efforts for nuclear power-related programs the partnership includes texas a&m university texas a&m university-kingsville texas a&m university-corpus christi and prairie view a&m university as well as several community colleges the texas state technical college the texas workforce commission civic leaders and high schools plans presented to the regents call for the nuclear power institute to manage a statewide effort to provide more than 2 000 engineers and technicians needed to staff and operate at least six new nuclear power plants in texas scheduled to go into operation over the next 10 years electric power experts say nuclear powered electric generating plants offer the best chance of meeting texas growing appetite for electric power expected to grow by at least 20 percent over the next decade nuclear plants can produce this needed electricity without contributing to the production of greenhouse gases ""the texas a&m university system is uniquely configured with the ideal combination of education research and service agencies and universities to lead this effort "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""the institute will make a significant impact upon the workforce and economy of the state and nation"" the staff needed to operate the additional reactors and generating plants will include technicians with two-year technical degrees nuclear engineers and engineers in other engineering specialties the npi will oversee expansion of curriculums in high schools junior colleges and four-year institutions to prepare graduates to enter nuclear power-related fields the institute also will develop recruiting programs aimed at attracting students into fields that would prepare them to enter the nuclear power industry ""the texas engineering experiment station is the right organization to bring together academic education and training and the nuclear power industry "" said k l peddicord a professor of nuclear engineering at texas a&m and director of tees the stp nuclear operating company luminant (formerly txu) and the exelon corp have announced plans to open six new nuclear power plants in texas over the next decade several more may follow ""the next years will be an exciting time for nuclear power in texas "" said peddicord ""were glad to be part of it"""
"washington dc - citing the potential for acts of terrorism on any of the thousands of chemical processing plants throughout the country m sam mannan a texas a&m university chemical engineering professor and authority on process safety and risk management testified before a house subcommittee wednesday (dec 12) and urged congress to give the department of homeland security permanent and continuing authority to regulate chemical security in the united states mannans testimony came as part of a congressional hearing on the ""chemical facility anti-terrorism act of 2008 "" a proposed amendment to the homeland security act of 2002 that provides for the regulation of certain chemical facilities addressing members of the subcommittee mannan who also is director of texas a&ms mary kay oconnor process safety center said that while many us facilities have voluntarily begun implementing appropriate security measures he remains concerned that many have not yet adopted such measures because of that discrepancy a regulation that establishes a minimum and level playing field is critical he said ""the fact is that chemical infrastructure and all components including the individual sites supply and delivery systems were never built with terrorism in mind "" mannan explained ""research must be conducted to determine how me might have designed and built the chemical plants and the infrastructure had we considered these threats"" estimates by the department of homeland security suggest that nearly 7 000 facilities - about half of all us chemical plants - are considered to be at high risk of a terrorism attack or an accident furthermore reports from the environmental protection agency have identified 111 facilities throughout the country where a worst-case scenario could endanger more than one million people as vital as regulation of these facilities is mannan explained that effective regulation must be science-based and cautioned that the proposed act or any actions resulting from the act should not create unintended consequences which might increase the opportunities for attacks rather than mitigate them providing an example of such an instance mannan detailed a hypothetical substitution of hydrogen fluoride with sulfuric acid for refinery alkylation processes while sulfuric acid is less toxic than hydrogen fluoride the amount of sulfuric acid needed to do the same amount of processing is 25 times greater than hydrogen fluoride because of that a change to the less-toxic sulfuric acid would require large storage facilities and increased transportation - both of which could result in greater opportunities for terrorists as compared to a well-managed plant utilizing a smaller amount of hydrogen fluoride among mannans other conclusions is the particularly disturbing assertion that hazardous materials in transit throughout the united states represent a highly visible target with a far greater degree of vulnerability to an act of terrorism than stationary facilities whats more this specific category of hazardous materials mannan said is arguably the least prepared to deal with intentionally caused catastrophic scenarios mannan also emphasized the inclusion of water processing facilities in the act as ""important and necessary"" though not traditionally considered a chemical processing plant water processing facilities remain an attractive target to terrorists mannan noted ""as the 9/11 events have shown terrorists are more likely to use easily available materials to strike at us "" he said the subcommittee chaired by rep sheila jackson lee is part of the larger committee on homeland security that was created by the us house of representatives in 2002 in the aftermath of september 11 2001 to provide congressional oversight over the development of the department of homeland security a renowned expert in process safety and risk management operations mannan is a professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m and is director of the mary kay oconnor process safety center the center conducts programs and research activities that enhance safety in the chemical process industries"
college station texas rayford g anthony professor of chemical engineering in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and former head of the department from 1995-2002 has been accorded the rank of professor emeritus by the texas a&m university system board of regents anthony joined texas a&m in 1966 as an assistant professor of chemical engineering and ascended to the rank of associate professor in 1969 in 1974 he was named professor of chemical engineering and in 1994 he was appointed to the c d holland professorship currently anthony is a senior fellow at the texas engineering experiment station a position that he has held since 1984 with more than 100 presentations 130 publications and five patents to his credit anthony is the co-author of three textbooks with fundamentals of chemical reaction engineering in its second edition he also has received the universitys most prestigious award the faculty distinguished achievement award for research as well as most of the faculty teaching and research awards presented by the dwight look college of engineering anthony has extensive experience in developing catalysts and modeling catalytic reactors having worked on dehydrogenation of butenes to butadiene oxidation of isobutylene to methacrolein catalytic cracking of methanol to produce olefins hydrocracking of alkanes and long chain alcohols direct hydrogenation of coal to produce liquids gasification of biomass synthesis of methanol hydrogenation of co and co2 and mathematical modeling of multi-phase reactors
"college station texas - in its efforts to share the best safety and security practices from western nuclear facilities with russian nuclear experts the department of energy (doe) regularly supports the foreign field experience (ffe) which involves nuclear engineering students from two russian universities-the moscow engineering physics institute (mephi) and the obninsk institute for nuclear power engineering (inpe) this year for the first time the ffe included american students last october five texas a&m university nuclear engineering students sponsored by the nuclear security science and policy institute (nsspi) at a&m met in switzerland with six russian students from inpe and mephi over a six-day period they toured some of the top nuclear facilities in the world funding from the does national nuclear security agency (nnsa) office of defense nuclear nonproliferation (na-20) supported all of the students ""this was the first time american students were part of the ffe "" said david sweeney one of the aggies who made the trip ""it provided the additional goal of creating academic ties and professional ties for future nuclear scientists of both russia and the united states"" while in switzerland the 11 students who were joined by one american professor and two russian professors toured the spiez laboratory the paul scherrer institute (psi) zwilag interim waste storage facility and the liebstadt boiling water reactor ""all the facilities we toured gave us great behind-the-scenes access probably more than you might expect from an american facility "" said sweeney ""i have visited several national labs in the us and it would have been difficult for our group with the foreign nationals to do the types of things that we did in the united states"" the spiez laboratory is the swiss center of expertise for nuclear biological and chemical (nbc) defense it supports both the swiss military as well as the civil defense mission for the country the lab deals with protecting switzerland against nbc weapons and with technical aspects of arms control and disarmament of nbc weapons the spiez lab has performed several international missions on behalf of the united nations including the remediation and disposal of chemical agents in albania the group saw the radiation detection laboratories including a mobile unit that can be deployed around the country in response to a radiological event the tour also included a visit to the chemical agents laboratory and a view of the site for a new bio-safety level-4 facility for biological agents psi consists of six facilities dealing with nuclear energy and safety research and it is the swiss equivalent of a us national laboratory while there the students toured several facilities including the proteus research reactor - a unique zero power reactor that can make measurements on irradiated commercial nuclear fuel - and the swiss light source (sls) which is one of the largest synchrotrons in the world they also toured psis hot cell facility that is used to work with radioactive materials in the main hot cell area was a series of six hot cells large sealed rooms with thick lead walls and robotic arms controlled from outside to work inside the hot cells other rooms used for less highly radioactive material had moveable lead walls so the rooms could be expanded the psi hot lab is the site of a broad range of advanced materials research in the nuclear area ""the thing that really impressed me was the size and the weight of all these giant lead structures "" sweeney said ""they also had a mobile hot cell it was about the size of a bedroom and weighed several hundred tons i suppose it was mobile with the crane they had there"" located beside psi is zwilag one of the few operating centralized long-term spent nuclear fuel storage facilities in the world ""touring the zwilag facility was very interesting for a number of reasons "" said sweeney ""besides the technical aspects it shows how the swiss are actually ahead of the game by building and operating this centralized waste storage facility the swiss have provided a good model to build on for safe waste storage in the rest of world including the us"" zwilag is co-owned by swiss utility companies and the government it was built to house all of the spent nuclear fuel generated in switzerland for 40-60 yrs after which the spent fuel may be recycled or held for further storage zwilag is also receiving borosilicate ""logs"" from reprocessed spent nuclear fuel from swiss commercial power reactors this gives zwilag great flexibility in managing irradiated fuel and reprocessed waste for the swiss nuclear industry the students also toured liebstadt a boiling water reactor and even ventured into the water-cooling tower that was 100 degrees fahrenheit with 100 percent humidity ""we had a great tour there "" sweeney said ""we went into the cooling tower at about the 12 meter level which is actually not very high in the tower there was steam coming up everywhere some of us had ties on and our ties were blowing up over our shoulders of course we were also dripping with sweat when we left"" while the majority of the trip was geared toward touring the facilities there was time built in for the students to soak in some of the local ambiance as well among the cultural experiences the students got to be a part of were a trip to the niesen a 7 000 foot high mountain that is known as the swiss pyramid a train ride along lake geneva and a visit to montreux city ""switzerland was just a great place for us to visit in the context of a program such as the ffe not only is it one of the most beautiful places in the world but the swiss really relish the opportunity to welcome and accommodate internationals from such former rivals as the us and russia we were treated more than once to fantastic home-cooked meals on our tours"" sweeney said ""we saw a broad range of activities related to nuclear science and engineering it provided us an opportunity to build long lasting professional ties and see some of the most successful and advanced facilities in the world"" for more information on nsspi visit http://nsspitamuedu/"
"college station texas - marine col rick sturckow commander of the sts-117 mission aboard the space shuttle atlantis in june 2007 visited the oran w nicks low speed wind tunnel team jan 31 to thank the team for supporting the repair design and validation for a torn thermal blanket on the space shuttle during his presentation sturckow showed actual footage and described the mission to the international space station he also presented jorge l martinez director of the wind tunnel with a framed miniature texas flag flown on board atlantis and autographed pictures of the crew on june 9 2007 a four-inch piece of thermal protection system blanket was found protruding out of the port orbital maneuvering system (oms) pod by the crew during routine inspection of the space shuttle with the help of the wind tunnel team nasa engineers conducted ground tests at texas a&m together they quickly developed a solution for repairing the torn blanket and ensuring the shuttle would survive reentry into earths atmosphere after the repair atlantis was allowed to return home but not before taking one last lap around the world to divert to edwards air force base for a successful landing ""first thing we wanted to look at was your oms pod "" sturckow said recalling his first moments after debarking the orbiter ""there were a few stitches but it held great"" the wind tunnel is a joint facility of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m the 10 foot-wide 7 foot-high tunnel test section is capable of producing wind velocities up to 290 feet per second at approximately atmospheric static pressure department head helen reed said sturckows presentation was particularly meaningful and memorable for the wind tunnel crew given that 50 years ago on the same date &mdash; jan 31 the united states successfully launched its first satellite explorer 1 into orbit"
"college station texas - with the help of a texas a&m university chemical engineering professor a dallas-based gas-to-liquids (gtl) energy firm has developed what it labels as the industrys first commercially viable process for converting natural gas into useable fuels the announcement came tuesday at a press conference held at the synfuels research and demonstration plant in bryan the result could mean millions of barrels of new petroleum products - all produced more efficiently and in an environmentally friendly method that helps reduce sources of global warming expanding on a process conceived by kenneth r hall a professor in the universitys artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering and the associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) synfuels international inc has patented a method for refining natural gas that will enable the firm to take advantage of existing natural gas deposits prior to this technology those deposits have remained untapped for a number of reasons said ben r weber chairman and ceo of synfuels international quadrillions of cubic feet of natural gas exist globally but because of geographical barriers transportability undesirable product contents or non-existing entry points to commercial markets those deposits lay dormant in areas such as peruvian jungles or indonesian islands in addition world banks estimates another 53 trillion cubic feet of natural gas is wasted annually by either flaring or being vented said thomas r rolfe president of synfuels international ""flaring"" occurs when natural gas is inefficiently burned into the atmosphere during the refining process currently an amount equivalent to 25 percent of the united states annual gas consumption is lost in this manner he said halls process - the result of nearly 10 years of work - will address both of those issues not only will it enable synfuels to convert natural gas to a clean-burning pipeline or tanker-ready liquid it will do so in an efficient and environmentally friendly method which still renders the liquid product competitive with the crude oil market weber said the breakthrough process which was developed in cooperation with texas a&m and tees is the result weber said of ""a marriage between texas a&m and entrepreneurship"" and it all began when hall and his colleagues were attempting to develop a method for disposing of lube oil waste in an environmentally friendly manner when hall first proposed the idea of realistically converting existing natural gas into usable petroleum products weber said the concept sounded ""almost too good to be true"" however texas a&ms credentials in the area as well as the quality of its researchers were enough to convince weber the idea was achievable he said ""during our research and experimentation "" hall explained ""we saw that it was possible to convert natural gas to acetylene which could then be converted to ethylene and the beauty of the formula for the conversion is that every step has been verified by outside experts as both scalable and possible on a commercial level"" the synfuels process focuses on efficient high-temperature natural gas conversion into acetylene which is then converted into ethylene at moderate pressures and temperatures after the ethylene passes through a catalytic reactor it is converted into products such as gasoline and jet fuel synfuels representatives state the process yields a significantly higher amount of usable products than traditional industry standards utilizing halls process synfuels - in an agreement with aref energy holding - intends to develop the worlds first commercially viable gtl plant in kuwait the new facility once completed will have the capabilities to produce high-octane fuels which may be used to power any motorized vehicle including aircraft and automobiles with only the need to flare a small amount of gas to remove nitrogen from the process stream ""this is undoubtedly the worlds first breakthrough for a gas-to-liquids refinery "" rolfe said ""by cultivating these untapped resources we will not only be able provide the world with a cleaner energy solution producing virtually no unwanted bi-products but we will also be able to stimulate local economies where we have identified these natural resources to be available it is truly a new day and we are thrilled to be leading the way ""synfuels has the opportunity to build hundreds of plants to make it a cleaner world and to develop natural resources that could never be developed before a new era in gas-processing technology has been born"" for more information contact kenneth hall at (979) 845-3357 or via e-mail: krhall@tamuedu"
college station texas - dr david claridge has been named fellow of the american society of heating refrigerating and air-conditioning engineers (ashrae) at the societys 2008 winter meeting claridge is the director of the energy systems laboratory of the texas engineering experiment station and the leland jordan professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university he is a registered professional engineer claridge has made valuable contributions to energy efficiency technology such as the validation of the variable-based degree-day method formulation of algorithms behind the four-parameter change-point linear regression and development of expert systems he developed the approach used in the texas loan star program which creates baseline models of building performance based on engineering principles using pre-retrofit energy data and regression techniques claridge also developed the inter-zone temperature profile estimation (itpe) method for calculating ground-coupled heat transfer itpe is the first analytical method capable of modeling all common building-to-ground configurations the method has been implemented in program code suitable for use in two major public domain building simulation programs while a simplified version is included in the ashrae handbook fundamentals the status of fellow ashrae is a membership grade that recognizes distinction in the arts and sciences of heating ventilating air conditioning or refrigeration and is earned through achievement as a researcher designer educator or engineering executive ashrae founded in 1894 is an international organization with over 50 000 members of which approximately 500 are given the title of fellow its objective is to advance the arts and sciences of heating ventilation air conditioning and refrigeration to serve the evolving needs of the public through research standards writing publishing and continuing education
space engineering institute (sei) students from the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university participated in the 22nd annual career and education day at the george brown convention center in houston feb 9 the annual event sponsored by the houston hispanic forum is designed to educate students and their parents in career choices college preparation and financial aid opportunities students from grades 6 through 12 had the opportunity to meet with representatives from engineering education law finance management banking public relations and graphic design the members of sei including four graduate student mentors and director magda lagoudas organized four one-hour presentations based on their team projects the topics ranged from building a space habitat with robots to remote operation of vehicles in space in addition eight students from bryan high schools ninth-grade class joined the sei students on the trip these students are members of the sei outreach program which began in september 2007 during each session the students presented information on different engineering majors discussed technical sei projects and held a panel discussion students from the department of nuclear engineering and engineers from shell oil corp helped sei students answer questions from the audience the presentations concluded with the bryan high school students presenting their lego robot designs in addition to the four panel sessions the students represented the look college at an exhibition booth students handed out brochures demonstrated the 3-d glasses of the sei tele-operation project and presented animations from the robotics project through this forum more than 1 500 parents and students from the houston area learned about texas a&m engineering for more information on the tees space engineering institute please call (979) 845-8768 for more information about the hhf or career and education day please call (713) 522-8077 or visit houston hispanic forum
college station texas - dr yalchin efendiev associate professor in the department of mathematics at texas a&m university has been appointed interim director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) institute for scientific computation efendiev came to texas a&m in 2001 shortly after receiving his doctorate from california institute of technology he is a member of the american mathematical society the society for industrial and applied mathematics (siam) and the society of petroleum engineers he has received several grants from the national science foundation the department of energy and industry he has numerous publications and serves on the editorial board of several journals including multiscale modeling and simulation: a siam interdisciplinary journal and numerical mathematics: theory methods and applications his research focuses on numerical analysis
"college station texas - dr mark holtzapple professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and researcher with the texas engineering experiment station (tees) has been awarded one of 21 grants from the us department of agriculture (usda) and the us department of energy (doe) for biomass research and development and demonstration projects holtzapple was awarded $600 000 to help build and operate a small demonstration plant of the mixalco process which converts biomass into alcohol fuels holtzapple will use the grant to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of anaerobically fermenting biomass to carboxylate salts and their conversion to ketones such as acetone ""the demonstration plant will hold about 400 tons of biomass and will digest about five tons per day "" holtzapple said ""the biomass is digested using a mixed culture of microorganisms derived from marine environments"" ""the microorganisms produce carboxylate salts which can be chemically converted to a wide range of products including ketones alcohols and gasoline"" the technology is licensed to terrabon a bryan company formed to explore options for converting biomass waste and energy crops into animal feeds liquid fuels and chemicals terrabon focuses its technology on conservation waste utilization energy savings and cleaner fuels and chemicals"
"laredo texas &mdash; texas a&m international university in cooperation with the texas engineering experiment stations (tees) energy systems laboratory (esl) celebrated receiving nearly $500 000 in federal funding for its ""energy-efficient green campus research initiative"" march 24 at an on-campus ceremony in laredo the tees-tamiu team received the funding thanks to congressman henry cuellar who represents the 28th congressional district in texas which includes laredo this initiative will provide tamiu the financial and technical resources necessary to undertake a long-term path to a more cost-effective environmentally friendly future for the campus and surrounding community the initiative will focus on three elements: solar renewable energy demonstration and research which will incorporate clean renewable solar energy in tamius new student success center; the sustainable green campus initiative which will implement a ""green campus initiative"" for the entire campus including greater energy and resource efficiency; and the energy-efficient campus initiative in which existing campus buildings will be recommissioned to reduce energy use by 10 percent malcolm verdict project manager with the energy systems laboratory said this initiative would enable tamiu to become the ""first 100-percent green campus in texas leading the way for other campuses in the texas a&m university system as we educate our students to deal with challenges of climate change"" ""the world has a fixed amount of natural resources &mdash; some of which are already depleted "" cuellar said ""so as population growth greatly strains our finite resources there are fewer resources available if we intend to leave our children and grandchildren with the same standard of living we have enjoyed we must preserve the foundation of that standard of living ""im happy to report that texas a&m international university is taking the first step in doing just that"" the texas engineering experiment station is the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the a&m system"
college station texas dr eric petersen has joined the faculty of the turbomachinery laboratory the turbomachinery laboratory is jointly operated by texas a&m university and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system petersen arrived in college station in january from the university of central florida presently he is an associate professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m petersens research areas include the ignition and combustion of fuel blends at gas turbine engine pressures and temperatures; investigation of laminar flame speeds of fuel reacting flows; high-temperature chemical kinetics and spectroscopy; advanced additives for composite solid propellants; and nanoparticle additives for enhancing the performance of liquid and solid fuels to accommodate petersens research activities an expansion of the laboratory is underway scheduled to be complete in june the new addition will enable the research of gas dynamics and reacting flows in one of the countrys few shock tube testing facilities the new test area will allow measurements at real gas turbine conditions and the exploration of the reactivity behavior of fuel combinations at gas turbine engine pressures petersens inquests include expanding our abilities to study gaseous fuels and heterogeneous fuels both liquid and solid in the shock tube also flame speed experiments to provide better models for fuel flexibility performance stability and efficiency in addition the research will be used to further develop fundamental understanding of the underlying chemical and physical phenomena of interest to energy and propulsion systems additionally a rocket laboratory is being prepared within the turbomachinery lab where novel solid rocket propellants will be developed and evaluated for use in rocket motors and energetics the rocket lab will also provide diagnostic capabilities for conditions and situations relevant to practical applications
"college station texas &mdash; dr eg ""skip"" ward associate director of the texas engineering experiment stations offshore technology research center has been honored by the minerals management service (mms) and the coasts oceans ports and rivers institute (copri) mms presented ward its corporate leadership award for ""providing invaluable information to industry and the public on the post-2005 hurricane season developments; offering invaluable presentations for operators and regulators on the new interim metocean and design documents; and demonstrating outstanding commitment necessary to ensure the best and safest practices in the offshore oil and gas industry"" copri an institute of the american society of civil engineers (asce) announced that wards 1978 paper ""otc 3229 statistics of hurricane waves in the gulf of mexico"" has been selected to receive the asce offshore technology conference hall of fame award: ""the paper was in the vanguard of a new way to determine the likely future wave conditions by looking closely at the past namely hindcasting for the first time using state of the art methods a significant database of past hurricane wave statistics was developed from which the future return intervals could be inferred the hindcast concept has been used in many geographical areas and has proven to be an excellent way to inform of expected future conditions the information in this paper was contributory to various codes and standards"" the copri award was initiated in 2005 to recognize those technical papers that provided the offshore technology industry with innovation vision direction and lasting impact on the design construction or installation of the offshore infrastructure ward joined otrc in 1998 as associate director since then he has worked to enhance and strengthen the centers relationship with the oil industry though expanding existing and introducing new technical thrusts; developing and promoting more applied research and application studies; and developing new roles for the center to serve the oil industry he has also had a lead role in planning coordinating and administrating the center¿s research program which has included up to 20 active projects in a variety of technical areas he previously spent 30 years with shell oil co beginning with shell development cos e&p research division in 1968 as a researcher from 1981 to 1985 he supervised the oceanographic engineering section and from 1985 to 1994 he managed the offshore engineering research department in 1994 ward became technology manager with shell offshore incs deepwater division where he was responsible for a group that designed deepwater structures and developed new structural concepts and components for deepwater production systems throughout his career ward has made significant technical contributions in the areas of oceanography ocean engineering and arctic engineering ward has been a member of american petroleum institute since 1976 and received the apis 30+ years of service recognition award in 2006 he also served on the marine board of the national academies from 1995-2004 he earned a bachelors degree from lamar university and masters and phd degrees from the university of houston all in mechanical engineering established in 1988 with funding from the nsf and industry the otrc was created to conduct basic engineering research and develop systems for the economical and reliable recovery of hydrocarbons and other energy sources at ocean depths of 3 000 feet or more the center is jointly operated by the texas a&m university the university of texas at austin and the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas - more affordable gasoline prices could potentially be on the way now that construction has begun on a demonstration-scale facility that will further validate a texas a&m process that transforms biomass into liquid fuels by september the facility is expected to be operational in bryan texas it will test the ""mixalco"" technology developed by professor mark t holtzapple and research engineer cesar b granda both in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m ""this demonstration plant is a major step towards relieving our nations dependence on expensive imported oil "" holtzapple said the mixalco technology can commercially make cellulosic ethanol and renewable gasoline said a representative from terrabon llc the company that holds the license to the technology it accomplishes that by transforming biomass - trees grass manure sewage sludge garbage agricultural residues and non-food energy crops - into mixed alcohols that can be blended into gasoline using additional steps the alcohols can be converted into gasoline that is nearly identical to that which is derived from crude oil holtzapple explained for three years testing has been underway at a smaller pilot plant in college station the pilot plant can process up to 100 pounds per day of biomass feedstocks such as paper wastes and even chicken manure the tests holtzapple said have been so successful that the process is now ready to be validated at a larger scale and thats exactly what the new larger demonstration plant will do moving the entire process a step closer to commercial feasibility the demonstration plant will have a loading capacity of 400 tons of biomass which equates to a digestion rate of five tons per day stated a terrabon representative sorghum will be the primary feedstock utilized current plans call for the process to run in 80-day cycles ""with construction of this facility we are one step closer to bringing cost effective renewable energy products to consumers "" said gary w luce terrabon¿s chief executive officer ""using municipal solid waste as a feedstock at a price of $10 per ton we believe this technology can produce fuel-grade ethanol for $100 per gallon and renewable gasoline for $165 per gallon for a facility processing around 300 tons per day of municipal solid waste"" in the process which has been developed during the last 17 years by holtzapple and granda biomass feedstock is treated with lime and then fermented to form organic salts water is removed and the mixture is then heated to form ketones - which are commonly used solvents such as nail polish remover at an oil refinery hydrogen is added to the ketones to form mixed alcohols which are then combined with existing gasoline before being transported unlike ethanol which cannot be transported through pipelines because of its tendency to absorb water mixed alcohol can be transported via pipelines to gas stations throughout the country a key aspect of the mixalco process that differentiates it from more costly alternatives is its ability to rely on naturally occurring soil organisms to digest the biomass holtzapple said this means that the mixalco process doesnt require the often costly sterile environments needed by other methods that utilize genetically engineered organisms he explained in addition the alcohol-based fuels produced from the crops used by the mixalco process are more productive in terms of net energy per acre than the well-publicized method that involves utilizing corn to produce ethanol holtzapple said in lay terms this means less land is required to grow feedstocks per acre farmers can grow two to 10 times more energy crops than if they were growing corn he said whats more holtzapple says his process is environmentally friendly the combustion of biofuels doesnt contribute to global warming because no net carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere he explained any carbon dioxide that is released is recycled through photosynthesis unlike what occurs during combustion of fossil fuels and there is less potential to damage ground water because less waste is being stored in landfills in addition the energy crops that the process uses require less fertilizer pesticides and herbicides than do traditional crops such as corn holtzapple added terrabon llc was organized in 1995 to commercialize three technologies that share the same suite of patented intellectual property developed at texas a&m university terrabon plans to deliver this cutting-edge technology via licensing the three processes"
"college station texas - dr w john lee regents professor and holder of the lf peterson endowed chair in the harold vance department of petroleum engineering has been appointed to serve on the national research council committee on understanding the impact of selling the us helium reserve the committee operates under the direction of the board on physics and astronomy (bpa) and the national materials advisory board (nmab) of the national research councils (nrc) division on engineering and physical sciences the committee will assess the impact of selling the federal helium reserve as well as examine the availability and reliability of worldwide helium supply technical opportunities to increase the supply and the relationships among supply demand and market price additionally the committee will assess the current and projected helium marketplace; assess the role that organizational and financial factors play in meeting the goals of the federal helium program; and identify measure that would enable the program to respond more effectively to the dynamics of the helium industry lees term on the committee will end in june 2009 i am honored and excited to have this opportunity to serve again as a member of a national research council committee lee said ""this committee will be studying an issue of great importance to a segment of the scientific and engineering community in the country and ultimately of importance to the public as a whole"" lee who holds a joint appointment with the texas engineering experiment station (tees) came to texas a&m in 1977 and was the initial director of the petroleum engineering departments distance learning program in november of 2007 he was appointed academic engineering fellow by the securities and exchange commissions division of corporation finance where he works on various issues related to the disclosure of oil and gas reserves lees areas of specialization include oil and gas reserves estimation procedures and unconventional resources lee previously worked for exxon where he focused on integrated reservoir studies and headed exxons major fields study group he also worked with sa holditch & associates inc and retired in 1999 after serving as executive vice president he has been a member of the society of petroleum engineers for 46 years and has held numerous positions including membership on the board of directors lee holds bachelors masters and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from georgia tech"
"college station texas - two researchers two staff members and a member of the energy systems laboratory were honored by the texas engineering experiment station (tees) during the agencies spring meeting on may 13 dr james wall and dr kuruvilla john received the engineering a brighter future research award lana wilson and julie masser received the tees golden gear award and michael martine received the tees safety excellence award the engineering a brighter future award recognizes outstanding research contributions and accomplishments of tees unit and regional division researchers wall has served as the director of computing and information technology division of the texas center for applied technology (tcat) for more than 12 years during that time he has assembled and led teams of students researchers and faculty on a wide range of projects that have totaled more than $169 million in more than 120 contract awards while serving as the director wall has managed the dreams (disaster relief and emergency medical service) program and has been involved in the foreign animal and zoonotic disease center program john is the director of the center of research excellence in science and technology-research on environmental sustainability of semi-arid coast areas (crest-ressaca) among his research interests are air pollution impacts and control strategies urban and regional scale air quality monitoring of air quality and meteorology emissions inventory assessment and tropospheric ozone and photochemical oxidants the tees golden gear award recognizes and rewards the professional and support staff who are the gears strengthening the power of tees wilson who works at the institute for national security education and research was described by one of the nominators as ""absolutely the best administrator i have seen bar none"" she was also described as having an extremely rare combination of highly desirable traits including: excellent leadership skills being exceptionally people-oriented and considerate of others creatively resourceful 100 percent trustworthy and an absolute joy as a co-worker masser who works for tees strategic research development has helped tees secure millions of dollars in funding including $5 million for a national science foundation center and approximately $3 million from the department of homeland security one nominator said masser ""has gone way beyond the call of duty to assist faculty and researchers in creating more competitive proposals for federal funding agencies"" another says ""this person is not only creative but unusually perceptive in discovering better ways to present and organize complex descriptive material and has competently taken on last minute requests from funding agencies with a positive can-do attitude"" the tees safety excellence award recognizes employee efforts that support enhance and implement safety in the classroom laboratory and work environment in a means that goes beyond the requirements of their position or description martine who is a research technician at the energy systems laboratory is described as a great person who gets along well with others always has a smile on his face and exhibits the kind of work ethic and professionalism that one wishes were characteristics of all employees one nominator said of martine ""when i think of safety i think of this person"" martine has constantly strived to improve safety awareness within his office and to provide practical safety tips to all employees on a regular basis additionally he has hosted regular safety sessions on topics his office faces in the field in addition to honoring the award winners tees also recognized employees of the agencies for their years of service"
"college station texas - dr edgar sanchez-sinencio has received the technical achievement award from the institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) circuits and systems society sanchez-sinencio the ti j kilby chair professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m university received the award ""for continuous outstanding technical contributions for nearly three and half decades to analog and mixed signal integrated circuits computer-aided circuit design neural network implementations continuous-time filters and rf transceivers emphasizing theoretical and practical aspects ranging from analog circuit fundamentals to applied areas such as built-in testing circuits and ultra wide band receivers and for sustained leadership efforts in developing a research group promoting circuits and systems through text books research publications and numerous cas society technical and bog committees/editorial/conference activities"" sanchez-sinencios research interests are in the areas of continuous-time integrated circuits analog built-in testing low-voltage/low-power mixed signal circuits and rf communication circuits he leads the analog and mixed-signal group and is director of the analog and mixed-signal center in the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system sanchez-sinencio is a fellow of the ieee among his numerous awards are the 1997 ieee circuits and systems darlington award; the 1996 ieee circuits and systems outstanding young author award (with graduate student alex reyes); and the 1995 ieee circuits and systems guillemin-cauer award for his work on cellular networks in 1996 sanchez-sinencio received the texas senate proclamation no 373 for outstanding accomplishments in recognition of his research inaoe awarded him its first honorary doctorate in 1995 the purposes of the ieee cass are scientific literary and educational in character directed toward the advancement of the theory and practice of electrical electronics and allied branches of engineering or the related arts and science in order to increase the professional standing of the members and affiliates"
"washington dc - the aerospace vehicle systems institute (avsi) celebrated its 10th anniversary with a reception in washington dc june 18 in the rayburn house building which is located across the street from the capitol avsi which is a research center administered by the texas engineering experiment station (tees) is a cooperative organization uniting government industry and academia to research and develop - and ultimately improve - aircraft and aerospace vehicles we are delighted to be the organization that provides the framework for this institution said dr kl peddicord director of tees who was one of the speakers at the event among avsis current projects is its work on wireless sensor networks a project that aims to remove wires from airplanes by doing this planes would be lighter which would help reduce fuel consumption as well as reduce the costs associated with manufacturing new aircraft additionally there would be increased reliability of operational systems and the risk of wire corrosion loosening or shorting due to vibration would be eliminated thus making air travel safer we can all be proud of this cooperatives accomplishments said amir anissipour of the boeing company who is chairman of the avsi board of directors ""avsi has been the ideal venue to address industry-wide issues and to favorably impact the development of future aerospace systems"""
"college station texas &mdash; alton d ""ad"" patton has been selected to a three-year term as an electric reliability council of texas (ercot) independent board member (unaffiliated with any market participants) he was selected unanimously by the boards nominating committee and approved in an email vote of ercots 220 corporate members patton is professor emeritus of electrical engineering at texas a&m university with 35 years experience as a faculty member including four years as head of the electrical engineering department he also is president of associated power analysts inc in college station an engineering consulting service providing electric power system analysis power system reliability and failure analysis i am very pleased to welcome dr patton to the board with all of his experience and industry respect he will certainly be an asset to our board ercot chairman mark armentrout said ""ercot is fortunate to add him as a board member"" patton was a former director and past board member of the texas engineering experiment stations center for space power honors include being named recipient of the 2000 institute of electrical and electronics engineers (ieee) richard harold kaufmann award for outstanding achievement in the field of industrial systems engineering patton also is a life fellow of ieee was named a tees fellow in 1985 and is on the editorial advisory board for the international journal of electrical power & energy systems he has a bachelors degree from the university of texas at austin a masters from the university of pittsburgh and doctorate from texas a&m university all in electrical engineering patton fills the board position vacated by carolyn gallagher who completed her elected term in march ercot manages the flow of electric power to approximately 20 million customers in texas acting as the independent system operator (iso) for the region ercot schedules power on an electric grid containing 38 000 miles of transmission lines and 500 generating units ercot also manages financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk-power market and administers customer switching for 6 million texans in competitive choice areas ercot is a membership-based nonprofit corporation governed by a board of directors and subject to the oversight of the public utility commission of texas and the texas legislature"
"the sei materials team completed a successful payload flight aboard nasas dc-9 aircraft as part of the space agencys microgravity university the experiment based on work by dr xiaofeng kang and dr allison ficht in the department of molecular and cellular medicine at texas a&m university aimed to evaluate the effects of gravity on a bilayer membrane that is an integral component of a bio-sensor able to detect single molecule analytes the team submitted a proposal in fall 2007 for the experiment ""analyte detection via protein nanopores in a microgravity environment "" and was selected to pursue a flight experiment in fall 2007 the interdisciplinary student team worked with the texas a&m researchers to understand the fundamentals of the sensor and design the flight payload the team acquired industry donations from molecular devices and warner instruments worth $16 000 for all electronics hardware and software used in the flight payload during the spring semester the team completed the design and all documentation to meet nasa's safety requirements during flight week the team presented to nasa engineers their flight hardware for inspection and final safety review and underwent training in preparation for flight the flight testing took place june 12-13 with the payload experiencing four sets of eight zero-g parabolas during the flight the sei students were able to form a bilayer and collect data on the voltage across the bilayer during each parabola ficht and her research group are analyzing the data to evaluate the effects of gravity on the bio-sensor the sei team included the following students: seniors daniel grimes computer science; vanna keller ocean engineering; katy westhoff aerospace engineering; jahziel chaviera mechanical engineering; and jennifer kirchner aerospace engineering; juniors nikhil bhatnagar aerospace engineering; brannon veal electrical engineering; and christine tipton biomedical engineering erin bishop a graduate student in the department of aerospace engineering was the team¿s graduate mentor and the project manager the team would like to thank dr edmund buck at warner instruments for donating all the electronics hardware for this flight experiment (bc-535 bilayer amplifier digidata 1440a and warners blm starter kit) a donation worth approximately $15 000 they also would like to thank carvano inc for their donation of $1 000 to support flight expenses the space engineering institute is part of the texas engineering experiment station the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system for more information on the space engineering institute e-mail the director magda lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu for more information please visit the nasas microgravity program page"
"college station texas &mdash; for cadet nathan wagner this summer is no vacation wagner is a senior engineering management major at the united states military academy at west point ny he began his summer in korea shadowing a platoon leader and an apache helicopter unit before joining the texas center for applied technology (tcat) for a summer internship at tcat which is part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) wagner is working with dr jim wall in the computing and information technology division and joe gonzalez at fort hood to model the deployment of improvised explosive devices or ieds a native of midlothian va wagner is researching how terrorists determine targets organize and resource construct transport emplace and select triggering mechanisms for various types of ieds the research wagner is doing will help tcat extend current army simulations that are used to train soldiers at fort hood and throughout the army this internship gives nathan a chance to see the other side &mdash; people interacting with the army wall said ""it will expose him to the engineering process and we¿ve given him a task that he can truly put his thumbprint on"" tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas two teams selected as finalists from a year-long student competition have presented their reports at the environmentally friendly drilling (efd) program disappearing roads competition finals and awards events the teams selected from university engineering departments across the united states competed to create the best engineering design for a system of moving personnel and materials to and from oil or gas well drill sites with minimal or no impact on the environment a key objective of the project was to improve the environmental awareness of understanding of engineers and for environmental scientists to understand the technical challenges posed by access to well site areas the university finalists for the 2008 competition were from the university of wyoming and the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university the university of wyoming research team developed a layered mat roll-out road system and a modular frame design the concepts came from the need to minimize soil disruption and wildlife fragmentation in jonah field and pinedale anticline production area (papa) of the upper green river valley wyoming developed in cooperation with advisers from bureau of land management and major upstream gas production companies the submission provided testing procedures and engineering evaluations and contained detailed information used to develop the recommendations the texas a&m team presented the ""skylift system"" designed to transport equipment and materials to drill sites in environmentally protected areas with a focus on minimizing the environmental impact in order to accomplish the development of a field within a protected area the use of the skylift system similar to those adopted in mining operations (where they are often referred to as aerial tramways) was proposed this would be installed via helicopter or airship pairing the skylift system with pipelines to transport drilling and production fluids outside the area would significantly minimize the environmental impact especially when compared to using a traditional road and provide a solution to the low impact issue that spans over the entire field life ten to thirty years during the development phase a panel of judges representing efd sponsors chose the winning idea the first-place award winner the university of wyoming received a check for $20 000 while the texas a&m team was second and received a check for $10 000 judges for the event were representatives from the natural resources defense council the us department of energy netl the rio vista bluff ranch mcfaddin texas and the houston advanced research center (harc) halliburton energy services sponsored the competition and provided funding for the cash awards texas a&m and the global petroleum research institute (gpri) hosted the event sponsors of the gpri environmentally friendly drilling program the crisman institute and the research partnership to secure energy for america (rpsea) attended the event gpri is a petroleum exploration and production research cooperative between texas a&m and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"college station texas - cindy wall who spent the past 13 years working for the texas engineering extension service (teex) has been appointed executive director of the texas center for applied technology (tcat) i am very excited about the opportunity to build on the solid foundation that has been established in tcat over the past 15 years wall said ""i look forward to the opportunity to provide leadership to such a talented and highly respected group"" tcat is a division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and its focus is on the use of applied technologies to help organizations solve problems both tees and teex are members of the texas a&m university system wall led the creation of teexs product development center (pdc) which was created in 2007 to bring technical expertise from emergency responders and other components of teex tees and the a&m system to private industry for product development she will continue to be heavily involved with the pdc and will work to find ways to leverage the mutual resources of teex and tees to bring new products into texas we are extremely pleased to have cindy join tees to lead the texas center for applied technology said dr kl peddicord director of tees ""her vast experience will prove invaluable to the mission of both tees and tcat and her past experience with teex will strengthen the collaboration between these two agencies of the texas a&m engineering program"" wall who holds a bachelor of science degree from texas a&m in industrial engineering joined teex in 1995 from 1995 to 2006 she worked in the technology and economic development division of teex as regional director of the texas manufacturing assistance center (1995-1999) business manager (1999-2002) program manager (2002-2006) and program director (2006) in 2006 she joined the urban search and rescue division of teex as an associate division director and last year was named to head the pdc prior to joining teex wall worked for kent moore cabinets westinghouse electric corporation and oi corporation for more information on tcat visit: http://tcattamuedu for more information on tees visit: http://teestamuedu for more information on teex visit: wwwteexcom"
"college station texas - the texas engineering experiment station (tees) has entered into a master research agreement with vestas wind systems a/s the worlds largest supplier of wind turbines the agreement is the latest step in expanding the tees program in wind energy research and development which will help propel texas toward energy independence today texas leads the nation in wind power accounting for 26 percent of the nations total installed wind capacity or the equivalent of the electricity needed to power more than one million texas homes this partnership with vestas wind systems is timely and truly exciting for our faculty and students said dr theresa a maldonado tees deputy director and associate dean for research in the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university ""we have the expertise and facilities to explore next generation materials large-blade design wind turbines civil infrastructure electrical systems and systems engineering for advanced on-shore and off-shore wind energy systems and with the rapid growth of the wind energy sector especially in texas this research is critical"" as part of their strategy to maintain its market position as no 1 in modern energy vestas has chosen houston a global energy hub as the location for its new r&d center in the united states the houston center is intended to strengthen vestas existing r&d network which includes research centers in asia and europe a primary objective for all research initiatives in vestas is to increase turbine efficiency and lower the cost of energy the selection of houston as home of vestas north american r&d center resulted from a national competition in which 36 states applied for this center tees and the research valley partnership partnered as one of the applicants from texas representatives of the danish company visited texas a&m and tees in march as part of their final evaluations for site selection houston and austin were also finalists although houston was selected as the site for their center vestas chose the a&m systems engineering program as one of its major university partners because of its broad range of technical expertise its unique experimental facilities and its excellent students vestas also signed agreements with the university of texas and the university of houston with the multiyear master research agreement in place vestas and tees researchers will collaborate to develop advanced wind energy technologies the first round of projects is scheduled to begin in the fall about tees tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system tees researchers conduct quality research and provide practical answers to critical state and national needs the agency partners with industry communities and academic institutions to solve problems to help improve the quality of life promote economic development and enhance the educational systems of texas tees also promote new technology education and investigate problems in health and the environment about vestas - no 1 in modern energy with a 23 percent global market share in 2007 vestas is the worlds leading supplier of modern energy solutions the company has installed more than 35 000 wind turbines in 63 countries including more than 9 400 wind turbines on american soil"
"college station texas - david redman has been appointed director of the aerospace vehicle systems institute (avsi) dr k lee peddicord director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) announced recently avsi which is a research center administered by tees and a member of the texas a&m university system is a unique forum for researchers from industry government and academia to work cooperatively on technology issues impacting aerospace systems development we are excited to bring dave on board to lead avsi peddicord said ""his extensive background in the field of aviation and aerospace will prove invaluable in continuing avsis mission of working to improve aircraft and aerospace vehicles the potential here is extraordinary"" redman joins avsi after spending the last seven years working for smiths aerospace/ge aviation in grand rapids mich where he held several positions including directorate staff engineer of special projects and intellectual property development and acting engineering director/department manager additionally redman has worked for kysor medallion/borg warner in spring lake mich and was an adjunct professor of physics at idaho state university the complexity of aerospace systems is growing exponentially redman said ""there are some problems facing aerospace companies that are beyond the capability of any one company to solve alone avsi is able to facilitate the type of cooperative research that will be required to address these problems and is well positioned to grow with the growing need"" avsi which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a celebration in washington dc is comprised of members who have the shared goal of solving problems faced by the aerospace industry while working to find cost-effective ways to build better airplanes among avsis current projects are the systems architecture virtual integration (savi) project a semiconductor reliability prediction project and a wireless sensor feasibility study the savi project is doing the groundwork to establish the feasibility of a new way of specifying and integrating increasingly complex aerospace systems this would reduce the cost and schedule of new airplane development while improving quality safety and performance the wireless sensors project aims to identify issues that would arise if traditional sensors were replaced by sensors that transmit data wirelessly removing wires from airplanes would reduce their weight which in turn could improve fuel economy furthermore wires present costly reliability and maintenance issues for all types of vehicles from bulldozers to aircraft a wireless aircraft could potentially be more economical to assemble and maintain members of avsi include: bae systems boeing the federal aviation administration ge aviation goodrich hamilton sundstrand honeywell lockheed martin nasa-jet propulsion laboratory rockwell collins and the us department of defense"
"turning everyday waste into gasoline may seem like a distant dream but thanks to researchers with the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and byogy renewables inc it could become a reality within two years dr kenneth hall associate director of tees and the jack e & frances brown chair and professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m university and his colleagues mark t holtzapple a professor in chemical engineering and sergio a capareda a professor in biological and agricultural engineering have developed a process to make converting biomass to high-octane gasoline possible the advanced process is possibly the only integrated system that converts biomass directly to gasoline most other emerging processes convert the biomass into alcohol and then blend it with gasoline the system is relatively inexpensive and focuses on using biomass waste streams and non-food energy crops rather than food products such as corn additionally the cost of such a conversion would lie between $170 and $200 per gallon excluding all government subsidies and tax creditsthis cost range is dependent on the type and cost of feedstock as well as the size of the biorefinery this would provide some much-needed relief for consumers when it comes to fueling their vehicles whose current options are to pay more or drive less biomass includes garbage biosolids from wastewater treatment plants green waste such as lawn clippings food waste and any type of livestock manure additionally since it does not use crops such as corn it will not put a strain on food supplies the process could also utilize non-food/feed crops grown specifically for biomass energy ""this technology is important because it addresses many issues - eliminating waste producing economical fuel quickly and being friendly to our environment "" hall said ""its a win-win for industry and consumers furthermore this technology is ready to be commercialized now and does not require any new scientific or technological breakthroughs to become a reality"" through an agreement with the texas a&m university system byogy has licensed the process and hopes to have a plant using the technology up and running within 18 months to two years the intent is to have raw garbage going in one end of the plant and 95-octane gasoline coming out the other texas a&m universitys department of chemical engineering is world-renowned in the area of process design integration and optimization a team led by professor mahmoud el-halwagi a pioneer in the field of process integration has been assembled to conduct the initial process integration work to provide a detailed set of design and operating procedures that will lead to the most competitive biofuels production processes for this technology ""our goal with this technology is to achieve as much as a 2 percent contribution to the nations gasoline demand by 2022 through the building of 200 more bio-refineries "" said benjamin j brant president and chief technology officer of byogy ""we firmly believe the tees technology combined with the byogy team offers this possibility"" the focus at the initial plant would be on using urban waste which the plant would grind sort and then convert into gasoline the fuel produced by this process could immediately be used as a drop-in substitute to the current petroleum gasoline supplies with a seamless integration into the existing fuel distribution infrastructure nothing needs to be changed at retail gas stations pipelines regional fuel terminals or in any motor vehicle ""our plan is to produce two-and-a-half billion gallons or more of carbon neutral renewable gasoline per year said daniel l rudnick chief executive officer of byogy ""we are positioning ourselves not only to handle the opportunity biomass waste streams that are available today but also the sustainable biomass energy crops of the future this green substitute for conventional gasoline is the holy grail of all biofuels"" about tees: tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system tees researchers conduct quality research and provide practical answers to critical state and national needs the agency partners with industry communities and academic institutions to solve problems to help improve the quality of life promote economic development and enhance the educational systems of texas tees also promotes new technology education and investigates problems in health and the environment about byogy renewables inc: byogy is a new technology company that offers the next generation of high-octane liquid transportation fuels derived from renewable biomass waste streams and dedicated non-food energy crops it was founded by leading renewable energy entrepreneurs engineers scientists and industry pioneers from the private sector and academic world for more information contact dr kenneth hall 979-845-3357 krhall@tamuedu; benjamin j brant 303-670-0880 bbrant@byogycom; daniel rudnick 661-333-2662 drudnick@byogycom for more information on byogy visit http://wwwbyogycom"
"college station texas - dr kenneth r hall associate director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and the jack e & frances brown chair and professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering has been awarded the 2007south texas section best fundamental paper award from the aiche hall co-authored the paper ""improved equations for the standing-katz tables"" with gustavo a iglesias-silva a visiting professor in the department of chemical engineering hall and iglesias-silva will be presented the award this fall during one of the aiche southwest texas section monthly meetings the article was published in the april 2007 edition of the journal hydrocarbon processing which provides information to technical and management personnel in petroleum refining gas processing petrochemical/chemical and engineer/constructor companies throughout the world aiche is the worlds leading organization for chemical engineering professionals with more than 40 000 members from 93 countries"
dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering recently announced administrative appointments for dr nk anand dr kenneth r hall and dr robin autenrieth within the dwight look college of engineering and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) anand has been appointed associate dean for research and associate agency director for tees autenrieth has been appointed associate dean for graduate programs and hall has been named associate dean of engineering and deputy director of tees the tees appointments are pending board of regents approval anand joined the faculty in 1985 in the department of mechanical engineering and was promoted to associate dean for graduate programs in 2007 and served as assistant dean for graduate programs since 2004 he has also served as associate department head for mechanical engineering and interim department head for the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering as associate dean for research and tees associate agency director anand will focus on faculty engagement for interdisciplinary research projects and the strategic development of research activities for the college of engineering hall joined the college of engineering in 1974 and has held many leadership positions within the program including associate vice chancellor and associate dean of engineering interim department head for both petroleum and chemical engineering and chemical engineering department head as associate dean for engineering and tees deputy director he will provide support for research intelligent properties and licensing to the college of engineering as well as responsibility for tees research centers and institutes autenrieth holds a joint appointment in the department of environmental and occupational health school of rural public health in the texas a&m university system health science center she has previously served as interim associate head for graduate studies and research for the civil engineering department as associate dean for graduate programs she will be responsible for the administration of the graduate functions of the college of engineering
dr sergiy butenko assistant professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a grant from the air force office of scientific research butenko who is also a researcher in the industrial and systems engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) received this grant for the winning research proposal he submitted as part of the air forces young investigator research program his proposal focuses on the concept of a cohesive subgroup that was first introduced in social network analysis it can also used in several other important application areas including wireless networks telecommunications and graph-based data mining one of the earliest models for the study of cohesive subgroups was the clique model butenko proposes new more practical models that relax various aspects of the ideal definition of a cohesive subgroup he will design algorithms for solving the resulting optimization problems and will use the developed techniques to analyze the structure of biological and social networks butenko came to texas a&m in 2003 he received his masters degree and phd from the university of florida he is a member of the american mathematical society the institute for operations research and the management sciences and the society for industrial and applied mathematics he is a member of the editorial board of four publications he has authored numerous publications and has contributed chapters to several books butenkos grant will be administered by tees the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system
dr anastasia muliana assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m university has been awarded a grant from the air force office of scientific research muliana who is also a researcher in the mechanical engineering division of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) received this grant for the winning research proposal that she submitted as part of the air forces young investigator research program her proposal for research was to develop a framework that integrates coupled thermal electrical and mechanical responses of the constituents of composites to the overall responses of smart composites with application to morphing structures she also plans to investigate long-term responses of these smart composites the proposed framework will enhance understanding of the multifunctional performance of smart structures under extreme environments and can support design optimization of intelligent aerospace vehicles which can significantly reduce development cost and time muliana came to texas a&m in 2004 she received her master¿s degree and phd from the georgia institute of technology she is a member of the american society of composites and the american society of mechanical engineers she has authored numerous publications and in 2005 received the career award from the national science foundation mulianas grant will be administered by tees the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system
three professors from the dwight look college of engineering and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) recently were named regents professor for 2007-08 m sam mannan from the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering kr rajagopal from the department of mechanical engineering and jennifer l welch from the department of computer science and engineering were recognized by the texas a&m system board of regents mannan who is the holder of the t michael oconnor i chair as well as the director of the mary kay oconnor process safety center joined the texas a&m staff in 1997 as an associate professor of chemical engineering and has served as the director of the process safety center since that time other awards he has received include tees research fellow (2002) george armistead jr 23 fellow (2004-05) the distinguished achievement award for teaching (2003) and the quality recognition award from ppg industries inc rajagopal is the forsyth chair professor in mechanical engineering and has a joint appointment in the department of biomedical engineering he joined the engineering faculty in 1996 in 2003 he was named a university distinguished professor and in 2004 he was awarded the bush excellence award for faculty in international research he has published more than 290 papers in archival journals written three books edited three others and given more than 200 lectures and seminars at university and national labs welch holds the chevron professorship ii in computer science and is a professor in the departments parasol lab she joined the computer science faculty in 1992 as an assistant professor and served as interim department head in 2001-02 she received the charles w crawford service award in 2007 was named a tees fellow in 2003 and received the faculty distinguished achievement award in 2000 additionally she received the ieee education society hewlett-packard harriet b rigas award for outstanding women engineering educator in 2004 the board established the regents professor award program in 1996 to recognize employees who have made exemplary contributions to their university or agency and to the people of texas to date 105 faculty members have been named regents professors each recipient of the award receives a $9 000 stipend a commemorative medallion and a certificate
"dr kenneth l peddicord director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) was recently appointed to the texas low level radioactive waste disposal compact commission by gov rick perry the commission which was created pursuant to senate bill 1206 in the 73rd legislator will provide for the management and disposal of low level radioactive waste while maintaining the priority of health safety and welfare of citizens peddicord will serve on the commission through november 2014 the use of radioactive materials has a huge economic impact on our state and ranges from health care to energy production to research peddicord said safe and environmentally sound management of these materials is imperative i look forward to being part of the commission and carrying out this mission for texas"" in addition to serving as director of tees peddicord is the senior associate dean for research and is a professor in the dwight look college of engineerings department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m university he also serves as the director of the nuclear power institute (npi) which is headquartered at texas a&m npi is a statewide partnership of four-year universities two-year technical and community colleges the nuclear power industry state agencies and local organizations working together to respond to the challenge of providing a trained workforce to operate new reactors being planned for texas peddicord is also a consultant for pacific northwest national laboratories lawrence livermore national laboratory and los alamos national laboratory he is a member of the american nuclear society for engineering education american society of mechanical engineers and american society for engineering education peddicord received a bachelors degree from the university of notre dame and a masters and doctorate degree in nuclear engineering from the university of illinois perry also appointed michael ford of amarillo as chair of the board and john white of plano as the vice chair ford received a bachelors degree in health physics from texas a&ms department of nuclear engineering"
"the houston advanced research center (harc) and the harold vance department of petroleum engineering at texas a&m university announce the creation of a collaborative research program to promote advanced technology for low-impact oil and gas drilling the university/national laboratories alliance established as part of the environmentally friendly drilling (efd) program will fund and transfer critical new technologies that can accelerate development of domestic reserves in a safe and environmentally-friendly manner the research is aimed specifically at technologies that can be used in environmentally sensitive areas that are currently off limits to drilling and production in addition to harc and texas a&m founding members of the alliance include: - university of wyoming - university of colorado - utah state university - sam houston state university - university of arkansas - west virginia university - argonne national laboratory and - los alamos national laboratory according to rich haut manager of the alliance and senior research scientist at harc the goal is to fund the development of and share the latest research findings with leaders of energy academia environmental organizations and government ""we will consider all aspects of energy resource recovery not only traditional oil and natural gas production methods but also unconventional production such as natural gas from shale or coal-bed methane "" dr haut said ""new technology and monitoring programs can show us how we can better manage precious natural resources while reducing our impact on the environment"" haut encourages other national laboratories and universities to contact him about participation in the alliance david burnett efd project manager and director of technology at the global petroleum research institute (gpri) within texas a&m engineering said the new alliance is a great example of how federal funding of research and development can make important contributions to both energy security and environmental preservation the gpri is a center within the texas engineering experiment station (tees) burnett explained that efd represents new low-impact technologies that can reduce the footprint of drilling activities ""for example we are currently examining the use of light-weight drilling rigs with reduced emission engine packages and efficient on-site waste management systems"" created in 2005 efd is supported by the us department of energy national energy technology laboratory and the energy industry the growing efd partnership consists of universities national laboratories energy producers and service companies environmental organizations and government agencies created in 1982 harc is a not-for-profit organization based in the woodlands texas dedicated to improving human and ecosystem well-being through the application of sustainability science and principles of sustainable development"
"the aerospace vehicle systems institute (avsi) is expanding its presence in europe with the addition of airbus as a full member airbus is one of the worlds leading aircraft manufacturers the aerospace industry is inherently global in nature said david redman director of avsi ""our us-based members are expanding their international operations while non-us companies are increasing their presence here the addition of airbus to the cooperative signals the intent of the current membership to bring a more diverse set of members to the table to solve issues common to all aerospace companies we fully expect to engage additional european aerospace companies regulatory agencies government agencies and universities to increase the value avsi delivers to its members avsi is a cooperative of aerospace companies the department of defense and federal aviation administration working together address issues that impact the aerospace community airbus approached avsi through its interest in our system architecture virtual integration or savi program redman said ""savi is a multi-year multi-million dollar program that is developing the capability to virtually integrate systems before designs are committed to hardware as a means of managing the exponentially increasing complexity of modern aerospace systems airbus participation in savi has really enhanced the collaborative effort on the current proof-of-concept project we hope to see their participation grow in additional projects to enhance the benefit to all participants current membership in avsi includes: airbus; bae systems; boeing; the department of defense; federal aviation administration; general electric; goodrich aerospace; hamilton sundstrand; honeywell international; lockheed martin; nasa; and rockwell collins avis is a research center of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) which is a member of the texas a&m university system"
"james eggebrecht assistant research engineer and assistant director of the industrial assessment center for the texas engineering experiment station (tees) has been awarded a certificate of appreciation from the us department of energy (doe) for his participation in their save energy now program eggebrecht is certified and recognized by the doe as a ""steam expert"" as part of his work with the program eggebrecht performs energy assessments of manufacturing plants throughout the united states this is the second time he has been recognized for his work with the program save energy now is a national initiative of the does industrial technologies program (itp) whose mission is to drive a 25 percent reduction in industrial energy intensity in 10 years industries nationwide can apply to participate in these no-cost assessments experts such as eggebrecht perform assessments to help plants improve the performance of their steam systems as well as other industrial systems including process heating fan pump or compressed air systems during an assessment eggebrecht spends three days visiting a plant to perform an evaluation of their steam system and boilers and to train staff to utilize itp resources designed to reduce energy use while increasing profits training on three doe energy saving software programs is offered: steam system assessment tool a modeling program that allows plants to perform ""what if "" analysis; steam system scoping tool a benchmarking tool for comparing energy usage to peers and identifying shortfalls; and 3e plus an insulation and heat savings software started in 2006 save energy now energy assessments have helped us manufacturing facilities save an average of $2 million or 8 percent of their total energy costs"
"providing enough fresh water for residents is an issue for laredo texas a city of 200 000 on the texas-mexico border laredo is almost at the limit of water it can draw from the rio grande river and groundwater in the area is brackish or salty as a result the laredo city council has agreed to spend $16 million to build a pilot plant that will field test a new method of desalinating brackish water developed by a texas a&m university researcher and commercialized by terrabon llc ""this is one step in securing and providing water in the future for not only laredo but the entire state with the development of this pilot project "" said laredo city council member gene belmares the desalination plant which will produce 50 000 gallons of water a day will test water desalination technology developed by mark holtzapple a professor in texas a&ms artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering ""we desalinate using vapor compression a method first employed on ships in world war ii "" holtzapple said ""we have updated this old approach using advanced technology such as high-capacity non-fouling heat exchanger and a low-cost high-efficiency starrotor compressor ""in addition we operated at higher pressures than is traditionally employed compared to traditional technology these innovations lower both the capital cost and operating cost"" the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and the center for applied technology (tcat) a center within tees will act as the technology integrator and analyst for the project additionally terrabon llc of houston an energy and water treatment technology company will design and construct the advanced vapor demonstration plant the american waters applied water management inc acting as a subcontractor for terrabon will operate and monitor the demonstration plant the project will demonstrate the commercial viability of advetm a new technology that could reduce the capital and operating costs of water purification and provide a low-cost solution to texas water problems advetm (advanced vapor-compression evaporation) uses low-cost high-efficiency starrotor compressors developed by holtzapples team and non-fouling heat exchangers to desalinate brackish and salty water at a cost that is significantly less expensive than desalination by reverse osmosis"
"dr g kemble bennett was named director of the texas engineering experiment station on march 26 by the texas a&m university system board of regents he was selected as sole finalist for the position at a telephonic board of regents meeting in february bennett who served as director of tees from 2002-2007 also is vice chancellor of engineering for the texas a&m system and dean of the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university ""in this transition i want to thank dr lee peddicord for his leadership at tees and i understand his interest in returning fulltime to his professional passion nuclear engineering "" said dr michael d mckinney chancellor of the a&m system a professor in texas a&ms department of nuclear engineering peddicord continues to serve as director of the nuclear power institute a statewide partnership led by tees and headquartered at texas a&m ""im also pleased to have dr bennett back as director of tees "" said mckinney ""kem has been a key player in establishing the texas a&m systems reputation for producing high-caliber engineers and engineering research and i know he will expand on that tradition as director"" bennett joined the texas a&m engineering program in 1986 and has held several leadership positions including professor and head of the department of industrial engineering associate dean of research director and ceo of tees and director and ceo of the texas engineering extension service as vice chancellor bennett oversees coordination and collaboration among the engineering academic and research programs at universities throughout the texas a&m system and leads the research programs and extension services of three state agencies: tees teex and the texas transportation institute as dean of the dwight look college of engineering he heads one of the largest and highest-ranked engineering colleges in the nation ""over the past several years we have significantly increased the number of engineering faculty and enhanced key strengths in research areas such as energy health care homeland security materials space and nanotechnology "" said bennett ""with the tremendous opportunities shaping up both at the state and federal level tees is poised to reach new levels of research excellence this is an exciting time to lead an outstanding organization with so much potential"" bennett is the founding chairman of the national domestic preparedness consortium under the u s department of homeland security where he currently serves as executive director of one of their national training centers the national emergency response and rescue training center he is the founder of the state and national urban search & rescue team texas task force i and served as chairman of their advisory board for several years in 2007 he was appointed and named chair of the national advisory council for the federal emergency management agency created by the post-katrina act the council advises the administrator of fema on all aspects of preparedness and emergency management bennett is an elected fellow of both the society of logistics engineers and the institute of industrial engineers where he has been recognized for his professional and academic contributions through the awarding of the eccles medal and the albert g holzman award in july 2008 bennett was appointed by gov perry to chair the texas board of professional engineers bennett holds a bachelors degree from florida state university a masters degree from san jose state university and a phd in industrial engineering from texas tech university about the a&m system the a&m system is one of the largest systems of higher education in the nation with a budget of $304 billion through a statewide network of nine universities seven state agencies and a comprehensive health science center the a&m system educates more than 109 000 students and makes more than 15 million additional educational contacts through service and outreach programs each year externally funded research brings in almost $676 million every year and helps drive the states economy"
"coleman texas - the central texas rural transit district (ctrtd) in coleman has received a $1 296 766 job access and reverse commute (jarc) program grant funded by the federal transit administration through the texas department of transportation (txdot) central texas rural transit districts jarc grant project was developed and submitted through a collaborative effort between ctrtd and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) center for community support this federal grant will provide funds to increase transit services designed to meet the employment needs of rural residents in brown callahan coleman comanche eastland nolan and stephens counties into the cities of abilene brownwood eastland and sweetwater jarc project transit services are planned to primarily center around job search workshops and trainings held at local workforce centers; and workshops and training held offsite but funded by the workforce solutions center of west central texas the plan also promises to extend service hours in order to enhance employment opportunities for rural residents in the city of brownwood rural texas residents are facing many barriers and challenges as they work to keep their family farm and ranch lands many are required to travel into metro areas to work and gain new skills to earn needed wages said martha opersteny of the center for community support ""with the increasing cost of transportation this project will provide a helping hand"" ms opersteny added while the primary service needs will be access to jobs education and training on a ""space available"" basis this service will be accessible to the general public it is anticipated that medical and shopping needs may also be fulfilled using this coordinator service jr salazar ctrtds general manager anticipates that over 2 000 clients will benefit from this project during the three year funding period the tees center for community support provides a broad range of information data and proposal writing services at no cost for texas community-based nonprofit organizations support is available to pursue competitive funding for programs designed to improve the quality of life for texans in all approximately $38 million in federal and private grants have been garnered for texas nonprofit sector with the direct assistance of the center"
"dr charles d johnson adjunct professor at texas a&m university at qatar was named a fellow by the doha international institute for family studies and development (diifsd) johnson is the director of the center for community support a center within the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and also serves as director of the public policy research institute at texas a&m university as part of qatar foundation for education science and community development the diifsd is among the premier international research centers examining the legal sociological and scientific basis of the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society the title and award were conferred by he abdullah al-khalifa secretary general of the supreme council for family affairs and chairman of the diifsd board of governors secretary general al-khalifa said he was pleased to recognize dr johnsons scholarship and commitment to the traditional family ""we look forward to a long and productive relationship with charles johnson and texas a&m at qatar "" he al-khalifa said the appointment as doha fellow is the highest honor offered by the diifsd and carries a $25 000 annual stipend said dr hassan hammoud the institutes director of research hammoud also lauded johnsons work on the global family matters information system (famis) and the global state of the family index ""working in close collaboration with the diifsd research group charles johnson has made a great contribution to global research on the family "" hammoud said the center for community support (ccs) provides a broad range of no-cost grant-writing services for texas communities support is available to pursue funding for programs designed to improve the quality of life and promote safe and healthy lifestyles among the citizens of the state the public policy research institute (ppri) is a social policy research organization that has provided legislators and agency decision makers with scientific research and evaluative services for more than 20 years johnson has served on national review panels for us health and human services testified before the us congress served as an expert member on the us family preservation act planning committee and has presented his research at the united nations further johnson was a recent recipient of the esteemed career achievement bush excellence award for faculty in public service presented by president george hw bush and was texas a&m universitys inaugural regents professor the highest distinction conferred by the universitys board of regents dr mark weichold dean and ceo of texas a&m at qatar said he is pleased to have johnson among the universitys faculty in qatar and that he appreciated the comments offered by al-khalifa and hammoud ""this is but one example of the strong working relationships between qatar foundation texas a&m at qatar and the nation as a whole "" he said"
nicole pottberg assistant director human resources with the texas engineering experiment station (tees) recently earned certification as a professional in human resources (phr) the certification awarded by the hr certification institute signifies that pottberg possesses the theoretical knowledge and practical experience in human resource management necessary to pass a rigorous examination demonstrating a mastery of the body of knowledge in the field certification as a human resource professional clearly demonstrates a commitment to personal excellence and to the human resource profession said mary power cae executive director of the hr certification institute to become certified an applicant must pass a comprehensive examination and demonstrate a strong background of professional human resource experience the hr certification institute is the credentialing body for human resource professionals and is affiliated with the society for human resource management (shrm) the worlds largest organization dedicated exclusively to the human resource profession the institutes purpose is to promote the establishment of professional standards and to recognize professionals who meet those standards
dr kenneth r hall associate dean of engineering and deputy director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) was one of three individuals honored with an innovation award by the texas a&m university system on thursday (april 9) hall was presented the award during the 2009 patent and innovation awards hosted by the a&m systems office of technology commercialization (otc) at the annenberg presidential conference center in the george bush presidential library complex additionally eight individuals from the dwight look college of engineering and tees were recognized for being granted patent protection from the united states patent & trademark office in 2008 the innovation awards were presented to scientists and inventors whose research exemplifies the spirit of innovation within the a&m system hall is an inventor or co-inventor in 12 patents including four that supports the gas to liquids process that is licensed to synfuels inc his research interests include thermophysical fluid properties obstruction flowmeters and gas to liquid processing the otc describes hall as a strong and effective leader in working across the engineering departments and centers and with other system members to identify propose and support commercialization efforts as well as being an active researcher hall is a professor in the chemical engineering department where he holds the jack e and francis brown chair and he also served as the head of the department for four years the other two innovation awards went to the texas transportation institute roadside safety division inventors and darwin prockop of texas a&ms health science center those receiving patent awards include: mark holtzapple (chemical engineering); gary noyes (professor emeritus in mechanical engineering); edward dougherty (electrical and computer engineering); david claridge (director energy systems laboratory); william turner (past director energy systems laboratory); randall tucker (tees researcher and lecturer mechanical engineering); alan palazzolo (mechanical engineering); and john criscione (biomedical engineering)
a tees texas center for applied technology project in which laredo high school students helped to build and install wind turbines to provide power to border colonias has been a named finalist in the texas environmental excellence awards competition the project team led by dr dean schneider from san antonio will be recognized at the texas commission on environmental quality awards banquet may 13 in austin about 40 high school students from laredos two engineering magnet schools worked with schneider and researchers in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) and west texas a&m university (wtamu) to provide electricity to colonias residents along the us-mexico border who are currently without power schneider said that students in the united high school engineering and technology magnet school and the laredo isd magnet for engineering and technology applications (cigarroa high school) are collaborating with tees and wtamu engineers to build and install four wind turbines in 2007 and 2008-one per year from each school two demonstration turbines built by students at each high school were installed in may 2007 one powers the electric marquee in front of cigarroa high school in south laredo and the other provides lighting for part of the webb county self-help center where colonias residents can borrow tools the students built the wind turbines from existing plans and generated a set of instructions that will be translated into spanish to be understandable by colonias residents in the us-mexico border region
"texas a&ms solar decathlon house is finding a new home the solar d was designed and built as texas a&m universitys entry in the 2007 solar decathlon competition sponsored by the department of energy as a collective effort of a group of dedicated students faculty staff and external partners after its journey from the college of architectures ranch at the riverside campus in college station to the washington dc mall competition site and its return to college station to be on display to the public at the bush librarys parking lot for almost one year the solar d began another journey on monday (april 20) to san antonio the college of architecture (carc) at texas a&m university which made the significant initial investment in the conception development and execution of the solar d is partnering with the texas engineering experiment station (tees) through its texas center for applied technology (tcat) to transfer this architectural and technological icon from its current location and state to a site in san antonio the ultimate goal is to transform the solar d into a texas a&m university system wide asset as a cornerstone and focal point for the development of collaborative interdisciplinary and cross-institutional research teaching/learning/training and engagement opportunities one initial opportunity that will benefit from this partnership is the official launch of the zero-impact self-sustaining (ziss) collaboratory which will initially bring together researchers from a wide range of disciplines within architecture engineering agriculture and life sciences and other units within texas a&m and the texas a&m system as needed in the development of solutions for sustainable built and natural environments commenting on this opportunity ""skip"" mills director of the san antonio operations of tcat/tees stated: ""the city of san antonio is eagerly awaiting solar ds next life as a nexus for research and development as well as a learning center for sustainability it is being considered as a candidate for incorporation within mayor phil hardbergers new mission verde initiative - an economic approach to sustainability focused on energy"" in addition dr jorge vanegas interim dean of the college of architecture stated ""the emerging partnership between the college of architecture and tees combined with the solar d move offers an exciting and unparalleled opportunity to create an exemplar of integrated research teaching/learning/training and engagement scholarship in a domain of critical importance for the city of san antonio the state of texas our nation and the world: the sustainability of the built and natural environments we are very proud to be a partner in this initiative"""
the oran w nicks low speed wind tunnel (own lswt) at texas a&m university will host the 45th international subsonic aerodynamic testing association (sata) conference beginning sunday and running through june 12 the own lswt is a part of the department of aerospace engineering and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the wind tunnel is located across from the general aviation terminal at easterwood airport engineers from asia europe south africa and north america will meet to exchange knowledge ideas and processes used for the operation and maintenance of low speed wind tunnels the conference will include presentations by the various representatives as well as tours of a&m laboratory and testing facilities sata started in 1965 and the own lswt is a charter member the own lswt which was built in the mid 1940s last hosted the conference in 1983 an upgrade on the tunnel was started in the late 1950s and it opened in its current state in 1960 the main parts of the wind tunnel have not changed but all the controls and data acquisition have been modernized to state-of-the-art technology the lswt is in the center of the new wind tunnel complex which supports research by faculty and students in aerospace low speed wind tunnels are used to test the aerodynamic characteristics of objects and were started mainly as a tool for airplane design they still fill this role but have expanded to test spacecraft missiles cars trucks motorcycles bicycles oil platforms buildings outdoor structures and even golf clubs and golf balls
texas a&m engineering and the college of architecture recently hosted five teachers from the bryan independent school district (bisd) to help them develop a curriculum for camp energy an enrichment program being offered by bisd for middle school students not attending summer school participants will apply science and math skills to learn about energy conservation through design contests and field trips to the nuclear science center energy systems laboratory (esl) college of architecture and a local biomass conversion plant esl an organizer of camp energy hopes the program will increase awareness about energy efficiency and sustainability and also the number of middle school students aspiring to get a four-year technical degree don gilman said gilman an assistant research engineer in esl conceptualized camp energy which will take place june 22-26 esl and the nuclear science center are part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency for the state of texas and the texas a&m university system
"while most teachers are enjoying their summers out of the classroom eight texas teachers are sharpening their skills this summer by working with texas a&m engineering faculty under the e3 program e3-enrichment experiences in engineering-is a summer research program organized by texas a&m engineering for high school math and science teachers and pre-service teachers as part of the national science foundations research experience for teachers program between june 8 and july 2 eight teachers will attend seminars go on field trips and participate in research under the guidance of faculty members from the dwight look college of engineering and researchers from the texas engineering experiment station (tees) through discussions the teachers will attempt to translate their research experiences into classroom lesson plans that include engineering applications ""we encourage the teachers to develop engineering projects for their classes that are open-ended problem-solving scenarios these projects are great because they encourage the students to think for themselves "" says dr cheryl page an assistant research scientist at tees who is helping organize e3 e3 is hosted by the dwight look college of engineering and tees and funded by the national science foundation"
"with dwindling coal and oil reserves and increased awareness about climate change zero-carbon energy sources-such as nuclear energy-are in the spotlight in fact as part of its nuclear energy university program the department of energy is funding texas a&m universitys dr jean ragusas research that will improve the working of nuclear reactors ragusa is an assistant professor in the nuclear engineering department and associate director of the institute for scientific computation a part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) tees is the engineering research agency for the state of texas and is a member of the texas a&m university system for this project ragusa will be collaborating with dr pavel solin an associate professor of mathematics at the university of nevada reno ragusa and solin aim to provide engineers with significantly improved simulations of the various physical phenomena taking place in nuclear reactors they will use their $587 000 grant to develop new and highly sophisticated computational methods to predict the behavior of complex coupled processes occurring in nuclear reactors such as neutron flux thermal-hydraulics and structural mechanics current models consider or ""solve"" one physical process at a time for example these models that can tell you where neutrons are in a reactor how accurate this prediction is depends on how closely the model mimics the conditions in a reactor scientists know that a physical process is simultaneously influenced by different processes but since current models consider only one physical phenomenon at a time their predictions are not sufficiently accurate ragusa and solin will develop open-source software based on advanced numerical analysis to simultaneously solve multiple physical processes and provide accurate predictions of the reactions occurring in reactors their multiphysics simulations will rely on the high-level software platforms the two researchers have developed independently in the past ragusa and solins research could help improve the efficiency of existing nuclear reactors since this research will allow scientists to rely more on predictive simulations rather than expensive experimental mock-ups it will also help scientists design reactors at a lesser cost since experiments in nuclear science are expensive ragusa said ""before you build a reactor it is important to verify how it will function and ensure that safety margins are respected; this can be done at a lower cost if computer models are more accurate predictive models are important because they can answer these questions using high-performance computing"" ragusa and solin are working with other national laboratories including idaho national laboratory to develop their software popularizing this relatively new technique will help nuclear engineers solve problems faster and more accurately ragusa said"
"washington dc has decided to go green and at camp energy 36 middle-school students from the bryan independent school district (bisd) prepared for the challenge camp energy which was held between june 22 and 26 at davila middle school in bryan was organized by bisd and the energy systems laboratory (esl) a center within the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the children learned about energy transformation energy efficiency and alternative fuels through field trips to bryan texas utilitys dansby power plant texas a&m universitys college of architecture the tees spacecraft technology center the dwight look college of engineerings nuclear science center and the tees/mixalco pilot biomass conversion plant i enjoyed the field trips especially the one to the space center because i want to build spacecrafts when i grow up said 13-year-old hunter denton don gilman an assistant research engineer in esl who conceptualized the program said that the aim of the field trips was twofold: ""besides exposing the children to energy concepts we wanted to increase their awareness about different high-level jobs involving science math and engineering"" the children applied the different energy concepts they learned during the field trips in hands-on activities they constructed energy-efficient house models built miniature waterwheels and windmills conducted energy audits of household appliances and a school building and raced solar cars i think the students enjoyed the hands-on activities we did not give them too many rules just the basics the ideas and innovation are all their own said jessica mahaffey a biology teacher at bryan high school who says camp energy has benefitted her too by helping her become better informed about energy-efficient building materials camp energy activities were designed to mimic real-world situations for example to build energy-efficient houses the children were given budgets ranging from $105 000 to $115 000 they had to buy all building materials which were realistically priced using this budget i was worried when we spent $100 000 of our $115 000 to buy the cardboard box for the house said 11-year-old kristin oneill who along with team member denton built the house with the lowest internal temperature ""but we still managed to stay within budget"" houses built with both high and low budgets were comparable in terms of energy efficiency noted sally keller a sixth-grade science teacher at sam rayburn middle school ""i think we managed to show the children that going green need not be expensive "" keller said the camp organizers now face the challenge of translating the camp activities into classroom activities that are aligned with teks requirements the teachers have been working hard during the camp noting what works and what doesnt gilman said ""the participants have also taken pre- and post-tests besides cost time and storage are concerns the only way to do these activities in classrooms effectively will be to virtualize them i keep seeing the muppet scientist in his lab but online using flash technology"" camp energy sponsors included the brazos valley affordable housing co-op city of bryan-sustainability office bryan texas utilities and the brazos valley association of home builders tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system camp energy is part of a larger plan to extend energy education in schools called ""integrated school energy education and building improvement"" or iseebi for more information visit http://iseebitamuedu"
"researchers from the texas center for applied technology (tcat) traveled to fort hood texas june 10 to deliver new developmental visualization software and provide hands-on training to users within operational test command (otc) the armys premiere operational testing agency the process-oriented data visualization (prodv) software application provides interactive visual analysis capabilities to both analysts and data collectors by combining data transformation processing and visualization capabilities within an easy-to-use visual programming environment this allows analysts to both detect the expected and discover the unexpected in extremely large and diverse collections of data effective visual analysis of this data is critical to the evaluation of the results of operational testing which is designed to ensure that critical requirements are met and performance limitations are well-understood on all equipment the army puts into the hands of its soldiers the software training provided students with hands-on experience creating custom interactive data visualizations and analyzing sample datasets and was attended by texas a&m university student intern kyle dudark a senior in the department of industrial and systems engineering representatives from otc who are responsible for the design and execution of test events and data collection said that this software will provide them with analytic capabilities needed for dealing with large datasets produced when complex systems are tested for function and interoperability otc test officers and data collectors will also assist in software testing for prodv during a verification and validation (v&v) event in october larkin ohern is the project manager a retired army officer and former texas a&m corps of cadets member oherns military knowledge combined with the tcat research personnels expertise produced a team that was able to design software specifically to meet the needs of otc derek overby who is currently a doctoral candidate in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m worked primarily with tcats blake stoker eric landrenau and abhishek bhor to design and implement the software under the guidance of dr jim wall director of tcats computing and information technology division and an associate research professor in the department of industrial and systems engineering at texas a&m tcat is currently in its third year of development of the prodv software framework and application under the university xxi congressional funding program in partnership with otc during a recent project review john diem the otc representative for the project said that ""teaming with a&m over the last three years has been a model of how to do things right"" the prodv software is currently being reviewed for an army certificate of networthiness which will allow the visualization software to be used on army computer systems this material is based upon work supported by the us army operational test command under contract no w900kk-08-c-0031 any opinions findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the us army operational test command tcat is part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"a total of 13 researchers in the texas engineering experiment station (tees) have received the prestigious faculty early career development (career) award from the national science foundation (nsf) the researchers are all from texas a&m university-kingsville and the dwight look college of engineering at texas a&m university the researchers are: • dr ulisses braga-neto tees electrical and computer engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m for his proposal ""theory and application of small-sample error estimation in genomic signal processing"" braga-netos research interests include genomic signal processing and statistical pattern recognition with applications in the study of cancer and infectious diseases he is particularly interested in the design and analysis of statistical methods of small-sample classification and error estimation for genomics and proteomics applications • dr zachary grasley tees civil engineering division and an assistant professor of materials engineering in the zachry department of civil engineering at texas a&m for a project that will focus on improving concrete materials grasleys research seeks to improve the understanding of the link between abstract nanoscale properties and macroscale material performance the research could ultimately transform the way concrete is designed resulting in safer more sustainable concrete infrastructure • dr greg huff tees electrical and computer engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m for his proposal ""biologically inspired concepts for reconfigurable antennas and multifunctional smart skins"" huffs research examines the circulatory system in our bodies and the color-changing/shape-shifting skin of the cuttlefish as motivation for a new landscape of biologically inspired concepts in reconfigurable antennas sensors and other wireless devices huffs research will enable new capabilities in these radio frequency (rf) and microwave devices - the frequencies at which cell phones wi-fi etc operate - by finding and exploiting unique parallels between nanoparticles microfluidics and other emerging technologies with the functions of blood cells veins and other biological systems • dr jaakko järvi tees computer science and engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m for research in methods for increasing software reusability the project aims to identify incidental structures formed by interactions between components comprising real-world software systems järvi will focus specifically on those incidental structures that arise in user interfaces (uis) and model them as explicit software artifacts the result is that large amounts of ad-hoc code can be replaced by reusable algorithms and other components järvis research will impact future large-scale software development and hopefully result in increased productivity and software that is more reliable efficient and predictable • dr arul jayaraman tees chemical engineering division and an assistant professor in the artie mcferrin department of chemical engineering at texas a&m for his research which focuses on soluble signal-mediated signaling between bacteria and human cells termed inter-kingdom (ik) signaling as the research paradigm for molecular systems biology his research has the potential to impact several areas: the molecular systems signaling framework to be developed in the project will lead to a fundamental understanding of signals receptors and recognition mechanisms this in turn will further the advancement of emerging areas such as synthetic biology in addition the research is expected to form the basis of novel molecular therapeutic strategies against e coli and other pathogens • dr tie liu tees electrical and computer engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m for his proposal ""information theory and coding for wireless broadcast networks"" lius research interests are in the field of information theory wireless communication and signal processing • dr tamás kalmár-nagy tees aerospace engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m for work aimed at developing a novel theoretical and computational framework for studying interconnected systems with random time delays interconnected systems are common in chemical and nuclear plants cars and aircrafts making research about their stability and security important since interconnected systems communicate large amounts of dynamic data signal delays are common and to date can only be characterized statistically his research could impact a broad range of applications that use interconnected components including space exploration mobile sensor networks teleoperated surgical robots and integrated building systems • dr eun jung kim tees computer science and engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m for her research in high-performance computing kim seeks to develop a comprehensive design paradigm for exploring the on-chip interconnect design space especially focusing on how it interacts with the rest of the cmp architecture the research is already being integrated into education curriculum through existing and new graduate courses and in undergraduate research programs in the department of computer science and engineering at texas a&m • dr david ramirez a tees researcher and an environmental engineering assistant professor at texas a&m-kingsville for a project that examines tiny man-made particles called nanomaterials which are smaller in size than a human hair and may serve as the basis of a variety of new technology for consumers physicians scientists and others ramirez is studying what happens when these new original nanomaterials come in contact with air pollutants - specifically whether the nanomaterials change form and have negative impacts on human health safety and the environment • dr lin shao tees nuclear engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of nuclear engineering at texas a&m to explore the radiation response and stability of nanostructured materials these materials could be used in the next generation of high-temperature nuclear reactors his research has the potential to improve fundamental understanding of materials degradation issues and lead to cleaner safer and more efficient nuclear energy his research will also impact the application of a wide range of nanomaterials-based devices sensors and detectors used in extreme-radiation environments such as space • dr haiyan wang tees electrical and computer engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m for her proposal ""novel ceramic nanocomposites with smart interface design"" she plans to examine the nanoscale interfaces in multifunctional ceramic thin films her research interests lie in the area of functional oxide and nitride thin films for microelectronics optoelectronics high-temperature superconductors solid oxide fuel cells solar cells and advanced nuclear reactors her expertise is thin-film growth and characterizations • dr sy-bor wen tees mechanical engineering division and an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at texas a&m for his research in optically induced nanoscale heat transfer with an emphasis on nano-optical devices nano-optics is a new branch of optical engineering and has the potential to revolutionize the science and industry with its ability in lower power high speed and high spatial resolution detection fabrication and operation wen aims to better understand the particle and wave types energy transport during the operation of nano-optical devices which is crucial to the development of this new field • dr yifang zhu a tees researcher and an environmental engineering assistant professor at texas a&m-kingsville for her work in understanding vehicular emitted ultrafine particles (ufp) her research that focuses on transport and transformation of ufp from vehicle tailpipes to within the vehicle cabin ufp are a major component of vehicular emissions that have been linked to adverse respiratory and cardiovascular issues the nsf established the career program to support junior faculty within the context of their overall career development combining in a single program the support of research and education of the highest quality and in the broadest sense through this program the nsf emphasizes the importance on the early development of academic careers dedicated to stimulating the discovery process in which the excitement of research is enhanced by inspired teaching and enthusiastic learning visit http://wwwnsfgov for more information tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"researchers from the energy systems laboratory (esl) at the texas engineering experiment station (tees) are helping austin go green they have developed a web-based tool called texas climate vision (tcv) to test the energy efficiency of new houses in austin builders can use this software to confirm the energy efficiency of house plans before construction begins in 2008 austin began implementing a new energy code which aims to improve the energy efficiency of new homes by 65 percent through energy-efficient roofing lighting heating ventilation and air conditioning all new houses built in austin must conform to this code energy-efficient buildings ease the strain on power plants thus curtailing harmful co2 nox and sox emissions &mdash; the main culprits behind global warming although the initial cost of building energy-efficient houses can be relatively high the energy saved by such homes translates into big savings on power bills for residents states such as california and florida which have strong building codes have already seen an upswing in energy savings its important for owners of new homes to understand that by paying now they can save a lot later said don gilman an assistant research engineer at esl using data from house plans tcv simulates a model of the proposed house the software then estimates the energy efficiency of the simulated house and calculates the reduction in harmful emissions based on energy savings after construction is complete certified third-party inspectors certify the homes construction as meeting or exceeding the energy code once a month austin energy the city-owned electricity supplier receives a report on all inspected homes and their energy savings the current software can simulate conventional houses not glass houses such as those commonly built overlooking lake travis it also does not calibrate for lifestyle differences gilman said ""for example you might use energy-efficient water heaters but if youre going to take long hot showers your air conditioners will still have to remove the heat from the house thus costing you more"" tcv is an offshoot of ic3 another energy-code compliance software developed by esl which is used across texas tcv was developed by tees esl in partnership with austin energy texas hero and the us department of energy tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
starting thursday (sept 10) short courses lectures tutorials and case studies can be submitted for the first middle east turbomachinery symposium (mets) the deadline for submissions is feb 1 2010 mets is being organized by the turbomachinery laboratory at texas a&m university along with the society of petroleum engineers and texas a&m university at qatar this symposium is closely modeled after the turbomachinery symposia that have been held in texas since 1971 through feature lectures tutorials case studies discussion groups short courses and exhibits mets will promote professional development technology transfer peer networking and information exchange among industry professionals mets will be held at the sheraton resort and convention hotel doha qatar between feb 13 and 16 2011 for more information visit middle east turbo or contact dr dara w childs director of the turbomachinery laboratory and chair of the mets technical advisory committee the turbomachinery laboratory conducts basic and applied research into important problems of reliability and performance of turbomachinery by drawing on world-renowned research expertise of texas a&ms dwight look college of engineering and the texas engineering experiment station (tees) tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system
"the texas engineering experiment stations center of community support (ccs) recently assisted two texas nonprofit groups and the communities they serve obtain grant funds totaling $2 932 145 these two grants will each provide five years of financial support during a time when non-profits school districts and municipalities are struggling to continue services the bryan independent school district (bisd) located in brazos county texas received notice in late july that its pre-kindergarten early start program had been approved to receive five years of funding ($553 500 per year) from the texas education agency (tea) this grant will provide bisd the means to continue and expand its current pre-k program to serve students ages 3 and 4 increase awareness and outreach to eligible families and enhance professional development for teachers and teachers aids working with these young learners in partnership with the local head start (hs) program bisd will provide space to accommodate additional classrooms and funding for expanding hs capacity to serve a minimum of 30 more students while improving professional development opportunities for its staff it is expected that more than 688 bisd students 30 head start students and 31 pre-k teachers will benefit from this program in the first year alone while 3 700 students and 45 plus teachers over the next five years will benefit district demographics of the current pre-kindergarten student population indicate that almost 90% of the students are economically disadvantaged and 81% are at-risk of not completing their education mary walraven of bisd stated that the center for community support provided the ""glue"" that kept the projects partners together and deserved credit for a strong proposal ""we had almost no changes to make during negotiations this is the largest grant ive been affiliated with … with the fewest pre-award changes"" walraven stated this grant will continue to provide and enhance bryan isds school readiness and ability to serve this high risk population in east texas nacogdoches countys appleby volunteer fire department (vfd) recently received a 2008 staffing for adequate fire and emergency response (safer) grant from the us department of homeland security for $164 645 to be awarded over the next five years appleby vfd protects the surrounding communities as a product of its 23 mutual aid agreements this increases the population served in its first due and automatic/mutual aid area to more than 45 000 residents this funded grant proposal was developed and submitted through a collaborative effort between appleby volunteer fire department nacogdoches county emergency services district no3 and the tees center for community support the purpose of safer grants is to aid fire departments by increasing the number of frontline firefighters and ultimately attaining 24-hour staffing and deployment capabilities specifically the grant will provide matching salary support of three new firefighters for appleby vfd over the next five years the first full-time paid firefighters for this fire department the addition of these positions will ensure not only improved local public safety services but benefit surrounding communities through enhanced mutual aid since 2000 ccs has worked with 125 texas fire and emergency service organizations helping secure more than $45 million in competitive grants for improvements in firefighter and public safety during this same period the center assisted 40 texas schools and educational nonprofits in developing projects dealing with issues such as teacher training vocational instruction special services for the blind minority outreach and literacy and math initiatives which resulted in over $164 million for improvements in public education in texas the tees center for community support provides a broad range of information data and proposal writing services at no cost for texas community-based nonprofit organizations support is available to pursue competitive funding for programs designed to improve the quality of life for texans in all over $402 million in federal and private grants have been garnered for texas nonprofit sector with the direct assistance of the center of which 38 grants were awarded for long-term multi-year funding support"
"advances in technology and computing in particular occur on an almost daily basis todays cutting-edge technology could become obsolete in just a few months one trend in the computing industry is toward an increase in the number of cores on a microchip the rationale driving chip manufacturers to develop multicore processors is that these processors provide better performance per watt than single-core processors multicores systems require significant sharing of resources such as memory and networks which can constrain performance and impact power consumption not much is known about the power-performance tradeoffs in multicore systems texas a&m universitys dr valerie taylor is developing infrastructure that will help engineers and application developers better understand how such multicore systems work she recently received $24 million from the national science foundations computer systems research program to develop multicore application modeling infrastructure or mumi (pronounced ""mummy"") ""multicore processors are the foundation of next-generation computing systems the computing industry is only going to increase the number of cores on a chip "" said taylor who is head of the department of computer science and engineering mumi will facilitate systematic measurement modeling and prediction of performance power consumption and power-performance tradeoffs in multicore systems mumi will also be used to model analyze and optimize the power consumption and performance of key benchmarks and applications of multicore systems such as weather and climate modeling applications biomolecular simulations and energy simulations collaborating with taylor on this project are dr shirley moore from the university of tennessee in knoxville and dr kirk cameron from virginia tech tees is the lead site for mumi with a funding of $865 000 and taylor as the sole primary investigator on the tees grant tees is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system"
"the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system and vestas wind systems a/s the worlds leading supplier of wind power solutions have signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) to develop a world-class partnership for research in wind energy the announcement of the mou was made during a ceremony friday (oct 9) when members of vestas leadership visited texas a&m and the department of aerospace engineering the mou is the latest step in expanding the engineering programs capabilities in wind energy research and development which will help propel texas toward energy independence for the past two years texas has been the top wind producer in the united states with more than 3 953 wind-generated megawatts installed texas is also the first state to achieve the milestone of one gigawatt of wind installation in a single year (2007) today we are sealing a world-class partnership for research in wind energy using the vestas and tees partnership collaboration plan as our framework said dr theresa maldonado associate dean for strategic initiatives ""as we all know texas will experience rapid growth in wind power over the next five years and we are positioned to support that growth"" tees and vestas previously entered into a multiyear master research agreement in june 2008 to collaborate to develop advanced wind energy technologies vestas chose texas a&m engineering as one of its major university partners for its new r&d center in the united states while they selected houston as their us-based r&d headquarters under the new agreement tees will provide academic excellence to vestas research programs in the wind engineering field as well as make a commitment to provide academic programs that will develop texas a&m university undergraduates and graduates into wind turbine specialists vestas meanwhile will sponsor a director for the wind center of excellence for a minimum of three years execute internal research projects with texas a&m staff and facilities and contribute associated funds as applicable provide steering and technical expertise toward the development of the wind center of excellence and associated curriculum and academic programs and support tees in bidding for external funding opportunities we are committed to supporting vestas through the objectives that are outlined in this agreement said maldonado ""we are excited about the new wind center of excellence we will work aggressively to recruit an excellent director and we are also committed to working with vestas technical staff to develop a new wind energy academic program"""
researchers in the tees texas center for applied technology (tcat) and the department of aerospace engineering at texas a&m university have received a third year of funding to continue work on military helicopter rotor blade erosion technology blade erosion in military helicopters continues to be an area of concern particularly in severe environments of sand and rain the current approach to assuring safe performance relies upon frequent inspection repair and replacement of protection films without robust and reliable procedures the consequence is high cost new erosion-resistant coatings are being developed but there are no physics-based models available to guide their development a research program is under way at texas a&m to systematically address the erosion problem this program now in its third year is focused on polyurethane films that are mounted on the leading edge of blades to provide protection from erosion caused by sand particles principle investigators for the program are tcats dr john ayala and dr ramesh talreja dr amine benzerga dr zoubeida ounaies and dr tamas kalmar-nagy with texas a&ms aerospace engineering department tees (texas engineering experiment station) is the engineering research agency of the state of texas and a member of the texas a&m university system
"a new institute led by texas a&m engineering will bring together industry and energy researchers from throughout the texas a&m university system to address some of the worlds critical energy challenges the board of regents of the a&m system approved establishment of the energy engineering institute (eei) at its meeting today (dec 4) eei will be a part of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) a member of the a&m system ""texas a&m has worked in energy-related areas for more than a century and built tremendous capabilities in the area of energy technology and systems "" said dr g kemble bennett vice chancellor and dean of engineering ""this institute provides an organizational framework to harness our expertise resources and facilities for maximum impact"" eei will serve as a central hub for strategic coordination of energy-related activities - including education basic and applied research and industry and government initiatives - conducted by texas a&m engineering and tees as well as other colleges at texas a&m and other institutions and agencies in the a&m system as an umbrella organization the institute will facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration between texas a&m the a&m system members government industry and other partners both nationally and internationally dr theresa maldonado associate dean of engineering and a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at texas a&m will direct the institute ""i am pleased to be leading this important institute at this time when there are critical challenges in sustainable energy to address "" maldonado said ""the energy engineering institute brings greater organization and focus to our established excellence in oil and gas nuclear energy electric power and energy efficiency as well as to our rapidly growing programs in bioenergy and wind and solar energy"" eei researchers will seek to develop new technologies and integrated systems sustainable energy resource utilization conversion storage transmission and distribution as well as efficient use and consumption of energy those technologies could then be licensed and commercialized for the public benefit in addition to research and development the institute will also study public policy implications related to energy production implementation of new energy technologies and environmental sustainability and train engineering students and professionals in energy-related concepts and technologies the institute and its partners will also seek to initiate and support international collaborative programs and advise industry government and the public on energy-related matters ""the energy engineering institute will serve as a shared platform for collaborative research and as a portal for our internal and external partners to our programs researchers students and technologies "" maldonado said ""this will allow us to capitalize on our history of excellence in energy research and commercialization by bringing in additional expertise from all over the a&m system and forming critical industry partnerships"""
"dr kenneth r hall senior associate dean for research and deputy director of the texas engineering experiment station (tees) has been selected as the recipient of the excellence in gas processing research award which is presented at an annual event hosted by the qatar university gas processing center hall will be presented the award during the centers 2nd annual gas processing symposium that will be held jan 11-14 2010 in doha qatar this is a genuine honor and i am grateful to the selection committee hall said ""the vast majority of my research career has revolved around gas processing so this award holds special significance for me"" the award is presented to an academic scholar who has made a recognized fundamental contribution impacting the field and the science of gas processing hall is an inventor or co-inventor in 12 patents including four that support the gas to liquids process that is licensed to synfuels inc his research includes thermophysical fluid properties obstruction flowmeters and gas to liquid processing in addition to his administrative duties hall is an active researcher and a professor in the chemical engineering department where he holds the jack e and frances brown chair he also served as the head of the department for four years the gas processing center was established in january of 2007 by the college of engineering at qatar university the center addresses the problems challenges and opportunities facing the state of qatars gas processing industry the center is focused on two main themes: asset management/process optimization and sustainable development"
the texas a&m university system has inked an exclusive license with advanced cooling technologies inc (act) of lancaster penn for momentum-driven vortex phase separator (mdvps) technology developed by researchers from the texas engineering experiment station (tees) the interphase transport phenomena group of the tees space engineering research center (serc) developed the technology that relies on centripetal driven buoyancy forces to form a gas-liquid vortex within a fixed right-circular cylinder that allows separation of different density fluids to occur the unique aspect of the mdvps is that separation relies on the incoming momentum of the fluid to produce the radial acceleration gradient reducing the power and mass of the device while enhancing the reliability texas a&m has flown several sized separators under reduced gravity conditions to investigate device scaling stability and transient behavior act specializes in advanced thermal technology development and custom thermal product manufacturing including the design and development of heat pipes pumped liquid and two-phase loops and thermal storage devices for aerospace military commercial and government r&d customers the company plans to apply the a&m system technology to design systems with higher heat transport and lower overall system size for applications such as air conditioning humidity control purification and vapor compression the addition of mdvps technology expands acts portfolio of two-phase technology which uses evaporation and condensation to absorb and reject heat allowing for direct contact heat and mass transfer the technology has performed well in all orientations and under microgravity conditions suggesting suitability both for aerospace and ground applications
"seven teams from the space engineering institute (sei) presented their fall 2009 nasa projects in november to engineering mentors from nasa johnson space center sei is established under the tees space engineering research center (serc) http://serctamuedu five of the presenting sei teams (advanced antenna space based solar power integrated thermal management system smart materials for robotic space applications and urine pretreatment) come from the main texas a&m campus two of the teams (mechanical battery and space laundry) came from texas a&m-kingsville and one sei team (radiation sensors) came from prairie view a&m university the program included 10-minute presentations from each student team and individual team meetings with the nasa sponsor to discuss the details for the spring 2010 projects in addition dr kam lulla jsc deputy manager for university research and affairs gave a keynote speech ""engineer 2020"" since that event three other sei teams have presented their end-of-semester work to their sponsors these are the sei-south texas project team funded by the nuclear power institute the thermal management of satellites team sponsored by the us air force and the unmanned air vehicles team funded by boeing sei currently has 60 undergraduate students and graduate student mentors representing nine engineering departments on the main texas a&m campus in addition 30 more students from three other campuses (texas a&m-commerce texas a&m-kingsville and pvamu) are also participating in the sei sei was established in 2002 to engage undergraduate students in interdisciplinary and multilevel team projects with mentors from nasa and industry to improve student retention in engineering and enhance their engineering skills to meet the needs of the us workforce since 2002 more than 75 percent of entering freshman who participate in sei have graduated with an engineering degree which is about 50 percent higher than the national retention average in addition more than 20 percent of sei students pursue advanced degrees for more information on the space engineering institute (sei) and current projects please visit http://seitamuedu or e-mail director magda lagoudas at m-lagoudas@tamuedu"