SciTech News Volume 71, No. 3 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor.........................3 Division News Science-Technology Division....5 Chemistry Division....................8 Conference Report, Marion E, Sparks Professional Development Award Recipient..9 Engineering Division................10 Engineering Division Award, Winners Reflect on their Conference Experience..15 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division .....18 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction, and Design Section of the Engineering Division................20 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews...22 Advertisements IEEE..........................................

Educational hypermedia resources facilitator

Se analiza el impacto que la enseñanza en web ha tenido en la educación superior y las distintas herramientas que permiten la creación de documentos hipertexto como recursos de enseñanzaWithin the university the introduction of computers is creating a new criterion of differentiation between those who as a matter of course become integrated in the technocratic trend deriving from the daily use of these machines and those who become isolated by not using them. This difference increases when computer science and communications merge to introduce virtual educational areas, where the conjunction of teacher and pupil in the space-time dimension is no longer an essential requirement, andwhere the written text is replaced (or rather complemented) by the digital text. In this article a historical defence is made of the presence of this new standard in the creation of digital educational resources such as the hyperdocument, as well as the barriers and technological problems deriving from its use. Furthermore, HyCo, an authoring tool, is introduced which facilitates the composition of hypertexts, which arestored as semantic learning objects, looking for that through of a simple and extremely intuitive interface and interaction model, any teacher with a minimum knowledge of computer science has the possibility of transforming his or her experience and knowledge into useful and quality hypermedia educational resources

Body Conjunction = Wavering Between Actual and Virtual Spaces

In the present digital age, the body tends to extend beyond it being flesh, it can be extended, it is a body without organs, and it might belong to more than your own-self. The “Body” as a living entity with its embedded sensory system, not only embodies who we are but also lets us understand and explore the sensitive, unpredictable but fascinating world. The body is an information receiver as well as information reactor. Through years of medical experiments and research on the body, medical devices and instruments are able to allow us to look into the deepest and the most mysterious spots in the human body. For instance, if seen through an HD monitor, while being probed by an endoscope, the body appears as an immersive and infinite landscape. By observing the smoothness and the folds of the surfaces encountered within the body, it is quite simple to project your individual self into this body-scape for a while to imagine and experience this immersive organic space. Various potential ideas of designing a body-like space have become the subject of design fantasies of a number of architects. The “Vitruvian Man”, which, Vitruvius described in the third book of De Architectura, and was later interpreted and illustrated by Leonardo DaVinci, has served as the human figure/body representation to be used as a measuring unit rather than being considered as a sensitive object. Unsurprisingly, it was a relatively long journey for architects to abandon this dogma. After the industrial revolution (during the modernist era), the concrete evidence of considering body proportions as potential measurements could still be seen in the projects of Le Corbusier, which accompanied his famous school of thought: “A house is a machine for living”. He developed the “Modular” in a mathematical proportion of space based on figures and intended to replace the old Vitruvian man with it as a new generation’s typical model. However, with the rapid development of electronic technology, the trend of realizing sensory environments akin to living bodies has no longer remained a thought but can be seen as an initial action to refuse to see the human body merely as a measuring unit. The turning point came about the time while the medium of news media, television, and social media became relatively mature, and thus started making people conduct critical reflections. Marshall McLuhan, a well-known pioneering media theorist, stated in his well-known publication, “Understanding Media: The Extension of Man” (McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964). This explicit shot made the researcher foresee the potential and intimate relationships between the body, technology, and space, and somehow have a rational explanation to extend the physical body to endless space, which is crucial in this chapter

Methods for modeling degradation of electrical engineering components for lifetime prognosis

Reliability of electrical components is an issue studied to improve the quality of products, and to plan maintenance in case of failure. Reliability is measured by studying the causes of failure and the mean time to failure. One of the methods applied in this field is the study of component aging, because failure often occurs after degradation. The objective of this thesis is to model the degradation of components in electrical engineering, in order to estimate their lifetime. More specifically, this thesis will study large area organic white light sources (OLEDs). These sources offer several advantages in the world of lighting thanks to their thinness, their low energy consumption and their ability to adapt to a wide range of applications. The second components studied are electrical insulators applied to pairs of twisted copper wires, which are commonly used in low voltage electrical machines. First, the degradation and failure mechanisms of the various electrical components, including OLEDs and insulators, are studied. This is done to identify the operational stresses for including them in the aging model. After identifying the main causes of aging, general physical models are studied to quantify the effects of operational stresses. Empirical models are also presented when the physics of degradation is unknown or difficult to model. Next, methods for estimating the parameters of these models are presented, such as multilinear and nonlinear regression, as well as stochastic methods. Other methods based on artificial intelli­gence and online diagnosis are also presented, but they will not be studied in this thesis. These methods are applied to degradation data of organic LEDs and twisted pair insulators. For this purpose, accelerated and multifactor aging test benches are designed based on factorial experimental designs and response surface methods, in order to optimize the cost of the experiments. Then, a measurement protocol is described, in order to optimize the inspection time and to collect periodic data. Finally, estimation methods tackle unconstrained deterministic degradation models based on the measured data. The best empirical model of the degradation trajectory is then chosen based on model selection criteria. In a second step, the parameters of the degradation trajectories are modeled based on operational constraints. The parameters of the aging factors and their interactions are estimated by multilinear regression and according to different learning sets. The significance of the parameters is evaluated by statistical methods if possible. Finally, the lifetime of the experiments in the validation sets is predicted based on the parameters estimated by the different learning sets. The training set with the best lifetime prediction rate is considered the best

Méliès Boots

Before he became the father of cinematic special effects, George Méliès (1861-1938) was a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist. Proceeding from these beginnings, Méliès Boots traces how the full trajectory of Georges Méliès’ career during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, along with the larger cultural and historical contexts in which Méliès operated, shaped his cinematic oeuvre. Solomon examines Méliès’ unpublished drawings and published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of what Méliès called "the new profession of the cinéaste." The book also reveals Méliès' connections to the Incohérents, a group of ephemeral artists from the 1880s, demonstrating the group’s relevance for Méliès, early cinema, and modernity. By positioning Méliès in relation to the material culture of his time, Solomon demonstrates that Méliès’ work was expressive of a distinctly modern, and modernist, sensibility that appeared in France during the 1880s in the wake of the Second Industrial Revolution

From Commodities to Assets: Capital as Power and the Ontology of Finance

assets commodities finance financialization ownership power property value* Winner of the 2021 RECASP Essay Prize * Assets are a crucial concept of the practice and mindset of the capitalist class. Critical analyses of capitalism, however, tend to admit that the exchange of commodities is the foundation of the analysis of capitalism. This article takes a different approach. I claim that assets offer a solid starting point for a scientific research of capitalism. The analysis of assets allows us to elaborate a general description of economic transactions and, to that extent, it lays the groundwork for reconceptualizing the field of finance. These two issues are closely related. The answer to the question, ‘what are assets?’, will give us the coordinates to address the question: ‘what is finance?

Méliès Boots

Before he became the father of cinematic special effects, George Méliès (1861-1938) was a maker of deluxe French footwear, an illusionist, and a caricaturist. Proceeding from these beginnings, Méliès Boots traces how the full trajectory of Georges Méliès’ career during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, along with the larger cultural and historical contexts in which Méliès operated, shaped his cinematic oeuvre. Solomon examines Méliès’ unpublished drawings and published caricatures, the role of laughter in his magic theater productions, and the constituent elements of what Méliès called "the new profession of the cinéaste." The book also reveals Méliès' connections to the Incohérents, a group of ephemeral artists from the 1880s, demonstrating the group’s relevance for Méliès, early cinema, and modernity. By positioning Méliès in relation to the material culture of his time, Solomon demonstrates that Méliès’ work was expressive of a distinctly modern, and modernist, sensibility that appeared in France during the 1880s in the wake of the Second Industrial Revolution