EU-China collaboration in design: research in Web-enabled collaborative design supported by the Asia-Link and Asia IT&C projects

The research of Web-enabled collaboration in total design supported by the European Union's Asia Link project [1] and Asia IT&C project is reported in this paper. The two projects both aim at enhancing research collaboration between the EU and China. The Virtual Research Institute (VRI) is described first, which is the platform for the collaboration for the Asia Link project and is established by utilizing the advanced Web techniques; and then, the framework for the collaboration and the Web techniques involved in the research are presented which represent the major research of the Asia IT&C project. The effective collaboration between the project partners and the impacts of the project outcome on the partnership are also discussed

D-STEM: a Design led approach to STEM innovation

Advances in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines offer opportunities for designers to propose and make products with advanced, enhanced and engineered properties and functionalities. In turn, these advanced characteristics are becoming increasingly necessary as resources become ever more strained through 21st century demands, such as ageing populations, connected communities, depleting raw materials, waste management and energy supply. We need to make things that are smarter, make our lives easier, better and simpler. The products of tomorrow need to do more with less. The issue is how to maximize the potential for exploiting opportunities offered by STEM developments and how best to enable designers to strengthen their position within the innovation ecosystem. As a society, we need designers able to navigate emerging developments from the STEM community to a level that enables understanding and knowledge of the new material properties, the skill set to facilitate absorption into the design ‘toolbox’ and the agility to identify, manage and contextualise innovation opportunities emerging from STEM developments. This paper proposes the blueprint for a new design led approach to STEM innovation that begins to redefine studio culture for the 21st Century

D-STEM: a Design led approach to STEM innovation

Advances in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) disciplines offer opportunities for designers to propose and make products with advanced, enhanced and engineered properties and functionalities. In turn, these advanced characteristics are becoming increasingly necessary as resources become ever more strained through 21st century demands, such as ageing populations, connected communities, depleting raw materials, waste management and energy supply. We need to make things that are smarter, make our lives easier, better and simpler. The products of tomorrow need to do more with less. The issue is how to maximize the potential for exploiting opportunities offered by STEM developments and how best to enable designers to strengthen their position within the innovation ecosystem. As a society, we need designers able to navigate emerging developments from the STEM community to a level that enables understanding and knowledge of the new material properties, the skill set to facilitate absorption into the design ‘toolbox’ and the agility to identify, manage and contextualise innovation opportunities emerging from STEM developments. This paper proposes the blueprint for a new design led approach to STEM innovation that begins to redefine studio culture for the 21st Century

Artificial intelligence in steam cracking modeling : a deep learning algorithm for detailed effluent prediction

Chemical processes can benefit tremendously from fast and accurate effluent composition prediction for plant design, control, and optimization. The Industry 4.0 revolution claims that by introducing machine learning into these fields, substantial economic and environmental gains can be achieved. The bottleneck for high-frequency optimization and process control is often the time necessary to perform the required detailed analyses of, for example, feed and product. To resolve these issues, a framework of four deep learning artificial neural networks (DL ANNs) has been developed for the largest chemicals production process-steam cracking. The proposed methodology allows both a detailed characterization of a naphtha feedstock and a detailed composition of the steam cracker effluent to be determined, based on a limited number of commercial naphtha indices and rapidly accessible process characteristics. The detailed characterization of a naphtha is predicted from three points on the boiling curve and paraffins, iso-paraffins, olefins, naphthenes, and aronatics (PIONA) characterization. If unavailable, the boiling points are also estimated. Even with estimated boiling points, the developed DL ANN outperforms several established methods such as maximization of Shannon entropy and traditional ANNs. For feedstock reconstruction, a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.3 wt% is achieved on the test set, while the MAE of the effluent prediction is 0.1 wt%. When combining all networks-using the output of the previous as input to the next-the effluent MAE increases to 0.19 wt%. In addition to the high accuracy of the networks, a major benefit is the negligible computational cost required to obtain the predictions. On a standard Intel i7 processor, predictions are made in the order of milliseconds. Commercial software such as COILSIM1D performs slightly better in terms of accuracy, but the required central processing unit time per reaction is in the order of seconds. This tremendous speed-up and minimal accuracy loss make the presented framework highly suitable for the continuous monitoring of difficult-to-access process parameters and for the envisioned, high-frequency real-time optimization (RTO) strategy or process control. Nevertheless, the lack of a fundamental basis implies that fundamental understanding is almost completely lost, which is not always well-accepted by the engineering community. In addition, the performance of the developed networks drops significantly for naphthas that are highly dissimilar to those in the training set. (C) 2019 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier LTD on behalf of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Higher Education Press Limited Company

ADAPTS: An Intelligent Sustainable Conceptual Framework for Engineering Projects

This paper presents a conceptual framework for the optimization of environmental sustainability in engineering projects, both for products and industrial facilities or processes. The main objective of this work is to propose a conceptual framework to help researchers to approach optimization under the criteria of sustainability of engineering projects, making use of current Machine Learning techniques. For the development of this conceptual framework, a bibliographic search has been carried out on the Web of Science. From the selected documents and through a hermeneutic procedure the texts have been analyzed and the conceptual framework has been carried out. A graphic representation pyramid shape is shown to clearly define the variables of the proposed conceptual framework and their relationships. The conceptual framework consists of 5 dimensions; its acronym is ADAPTS. In the base are: (1) the Application to which it is intended, (2) the available DAta, (3) the APproach under which it is operated, and (4) the machine learning Tool used. At the top of the pyramid, (5) the necessary Sensing. A study case is proposed to show its applicability. This work is part of a broader line of research, in terms of optimization under sustainability criteria.Telefónica Chair “Intelligence in Networks” of the University of Seville (Spain

Active learning based laboratory towards engineering education 4.0

Universities have a relevant and essential key role to ensure knowledge and development of competencies in the current fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 promotes a set of digital technologies to allow the convergence between the information technology and the operation technology towards smarter factories. Under such new framework, multiple initiatives are being carried out worldwide as response of such evolution, particularly, from the engineering education point of view. In this regard, this paper introduces the initiative that is being carried out at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, called Industry 4.0 Technologies Laboratory, I4Tech Lab. The I4Tech laboratory represents a technological environment for the academic, research and industrial promotion of related technologies. First, in this work, some of the main aspects considered in the definition of the so called engineering education 4.0 are discussed. Next, the proposed laboratory architecture, objectives as well as considered technologies are explained. Finally, the basis of the proposed academic method supported by an active learning approach is presented.Postprint (published version

Perspectives of Integrated “Next Industrial Revolution” Clusters in Poland and Siberia

Rozdział z: Functioning of the Local Production Systems in Central and Eastern European Countries and Siberia. Case Studies and Comparative Studies, ed. Mariusz E. Sokołowicz.The paper presents the mapping of potential next industrial revolution clusters in Poland and Siberia. Deindustrialization of the cities and struggles with its consequences are one of the fundamental economic problems in current global economy. Some hope to find an answer to that problem is associated with the idea of next industrial revolution and reindustrialization initiatives. In the paper, projects aimed at developing next industrial revolution clusters are analyzed. The objective of the research was to examine new industrial revolution paradigm as a platform for establishing university-based trans-border industry clusters in Poland and Siberia47 and to raise awareness of next industry revolution initiatives.Monograph financed under a contract of execution of the international scientific project within 7th Framework Programme of the European Union, co-financed by Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (title: “Functioning of the Local Production Systems in the Conditions of Economic Crisis (Comparative Analysis and Benchmarking for the EU and Beyond”)). Monografia sfinansowana w oparciu o umowę o wykonanie projektu między narodowego w ramach 7. Programu Ramowego UE, współfinansowanego ze środków Ministerstwa Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego (tytuł projektu: „Funkcjonowanie lokalnych systemów produkcyjnych w warunkach kryzysu gospodarczego (analiza porównawcza i benchmarking w wybranych krajach UE oraz krajach trzecich”))

Англійська мова для навчання і роботи Т. 4. Професійне іншомовне письмо

Подано всі види діяльності студентів з вивчення англійської мови, спрямовані на розвиток мовної поведінки, необхідної для ефективного спілкування в академічному та професійному середовищах. Містить завдання і вправи, типові для різноманітних академічних та професійних сфер і ситуацій. Структура організації змісту – модульна, охоплює певні мовленнєві вміння залежно від мовної поведінки. Даний модуль має на меті розвиток у студентів умінь і навичок писемного спілкування, що пов’язане з майбутньою професією студентів, та основ медіації і письмового перекладу, які спрямовані на розвиток умінь писати тексти різних типів і жанрів, такі як резюме, листи, анотації тощо. Ресурси для самостійної роботи (частина ІІ) містять завдання та вправи для розвитку словникового запасу та розширення діапазону функціональних зразків, необхідних для виконання певних функцій, та завдання, які спрямовані на організацію самостійної роботи студентів. За допомогою засобів діагностики (частина ІІІ) студенти можуть самостійно перевірити засвоєння навчального матеріалу та оцінити свої досягнення. Граматичні явища і вправи для їх засвоєння наводяться в томі 5. Призначений для студентів технічних університетів гірничого профілю. Може використовуватися для викладання вибіркових курсів з англійської мови, а також для самостійного вивчення англійської мови викладачами, фахівцями і науковцями різних інженерних галузей

OFMTutor: An operator function model intelligent tutoring system

The design, implementation, and evaluation of an Operator Function Model intelligent tutoring system (OFMTutor) is presented. OFMTutor is intended to provide intelligent tutoring in the context of complex dynamic systems for which an operator function model (OFM) can be constructed. The human operator's role in such complex, dynamic, and highly automated systems is that of a supervisory controller whose primary responsibilities are routine monitoring and fine-tuning of system parameters and occasional compensation for system abnormalities. The automated systems must support the human operator. One potentially useful form of support is the use of intelligent tutoring systems to teach the operator about the system and how to function within that system. Previous research on intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) is considered. The proposed design for OFMTutor is presented, and an experimental evaluation is described

General Purpose Technologies and Productivity Surges: Historical Reflections on the Future of the ICT Revolution

Presented to the International Symposium on ECONOMIC CHALLENGES OF THE 21ST CENTURY IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE, Oxford, England, 2nd-4th July, 1999 Celebrating the Scholarly Career of Charles H. Feinstein, FBA. Re- examination of early twentieth century American productivity growth experience sheds light on the general phenomenon of recurring prolonged swings in total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate experienced in the advanced industrial economies. After a “productivity slowdown” lasting more than a quarter of a century (during which TFP for in the manufacturing sector grew at less than 1 percent per annum, industrial TFP surged to average 6 percent per annum during 1919-29. This contributed substantially to the absolute and relative rise of the US domestic economy’s TFP residual, and in many respects it may be seen as the opening of the high-growth era that persisted into the 1970s. The productivity surge marked the culminating phase in the diffusion of “the dynamo” as a general purpose technology (GPT); that saw a shift in the underlying technological regime brought about by the implementation of critical engineering and organizational advances originating in some two decades earlier. Closer analysis reveals the significant concurrence of the factory electrification movement in this period with important structural changes that were taking place in US labor markets; in addition, there were significant complementarities between managerial and organizational innovations and the new dynamo-based factory technology, on the one hand, and, and the reinforcement of both kinds of innovation by the macroeconomic conditions of the 1920s. This more complicated, historical view of the dynamics of GPT diffusion is supported by comparisons of the US experience of factory electrification with the developments taking place in Japanese industry during the 1920’s, and in the UK manufacturing sector during the 1930’s. Concluding sections of the paper reflect on the analogies and contrasts between the historical case of a socio-economic regime transition involving the electric dynamo and the modern experience of the information and communications technology (ICT) revolution. Our formulation the GPT concept in explicitly historical terms contributes to explaining the paradoxical phenomenon of the late twentieth century productivity slowdown in the US. It also points to some contemporary portents of a future phase of more rapid ICT-based growth in total factor productivity.