Serious Fun: Using toys to demonstrate fluid mechanics principles

Many students have owned or seen fluids toys in which two immiscible fluids within a closed container can be tilted to generate waves. These types of inexpensive and readily available toys are fun to play with, but they are also useful for provoking student learning about fluid properties or complex fluid behavior, including drop formation and coalescence. Including these toys in a class or lab with a companion exercise allows students to use observation and inductive reasoning to infer principles-all while having fun

Celebrating 20 Years of the ExCEEd Teaching Workshop

In response to the clear need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed and funded Project ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) which is celebrating its twentieth year of existence. For the past two decades, 38 ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at six different universities. The program has 910 graduates from over 267 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. The ExCEEd effort has transformed from one that relied on the grass roots support of its participants to one that is supported and embraced by department heads and deans. This paper summarizes the history of Project ExCEEd, describes the content of the ETW, assesses its effectiveness, highlights changes in the program as a result of the assessment, and outlines the future direction of the program

Celebrating 20 Years of the ExCEEd Teaching Workshop

In response to the clear need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed and funded Project ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) which is celebrating its twentieth year of existence. For the past two decades, 38 ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at six different universities. The program has 910 graduates from over 267 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. The ExCEEd effort has transformed from one that relied on the grass roots support of its participants to one that is supported and embraced by department heads and deans. This paper summarizes the history of Project ExCEEd, describes the content of the ETW, assesses its effectiveness, highlights changes in the program as a result of the assessment, and outlines the future direction of the program

Numerical simulation of Tehran dust storm on 2 june 2014: A case study of agricultural abandoned lands as emission sources

On 2 June 2014, at about 13 UTC, a dust storm arrived in Tehran as a severe hazard that caused injures, deaths, failures in power supply, and traffic disruption. Such an extreme event is not considered as common for the Tehran area, which has raised the question of the dust storm’s origin and the need for increasing citizens’ preparedness during such events. The analysis of the observational data and numerical simulations using coupled dust-atmospheric models showed that intensive convective activity occurred over the south and southwest of Tehran, which produced cold downdrafts and, consequently, high-velocity surface winds. Different dust source masks were used as an input for model hindcasts of the event (forecasts of the past event) to show the capability of the numerical models to perform high-quality forecasts in such events and to expand the knowledge on the storm’s formation and progression. In addition to the proven capability of the models, if engaged in operational use to contribute to the establishment of an early warning system for dust storms, another conclusion appeared as a highlight of this research: abandoned agricultural areas south of Tehran were responsible for over 50% of the airborne dust concentration within the dust storm that surged through Tehran. Such a dust source in the numerical simulation produced a PM10 surface dust concentration of several thousand µm/m3, which classifies it as a dust source hot-spot. The produced evidence indivisibly links issues of land degradation, extreme weather, environmental protection, and health and safety

The first inherited retinal disease registry in Iran: Research protocol and results of a pilot study

Background: To describe the protocol for developing a national inherited retinal disease (IRD) registry in Iran and present its initial report. Methods: This community-based participatory research was approved by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran in 2016. To provide the minimum data set (MDS), several focus group meetings were held. The final MDS was handed over to an engineering team to develop a web-based software. In the pilot phase, the software was set up in two referral centers in Iran. Final IRD diagnosis was made based on clinical manifestations and genetic findings. Ultimately, patient registration was done based on all clinical and non-clinical manifestations. Results: Initially, a total of 151 data elements were approved with Delphi technique. The registry software went live at www.IRDReg.org based on DHIS2 open source license agreement since February 2016. So far, a total of 1001 patients have been registered with a mean age of 32.41±15.60 years (range, 3 months to 74 years). The majority of the registered patients had retinitis pigmentosa (42, 95 CI: 38.9 to 45). Genetic testing was done for approximately 20 of the registered individuals. Conclusion: Our study shows successful web-based software design and data collection as a proof of concept for the first IRD registry in Iran. Multicenter integration of the IRD registry in medical centers throughout the country is well underway as planned. These data will assist researchers to rapidly access information about the distribution and genetic patterns of this disease. © 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited