A structural engineering master\u27s program -- The trials and tribulations

This paper is specifically intended for the advertised session in the CE Division on “current issues affecting graduate CE programs such as double dipping, accreditation of masters programs, combined MS/BS degree, research versus practice oriented masters degrees, etc.” California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) is a predominately undergraduate university. Cal Poly has recently expanded master’s level graduate programs to support advanced education and faculty-student professional development opportunities. The Architectural Engineering Department in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) started a structural engineering master’s degree program six years ago and has graduated five separate classes. Since its inception, this master’s program has dealt with a variety of issues to include accreditation, blending the program with the undergraduate degree, offering a non-project option, managing the program through continuing education, collaborating with other departments, partnering with industry, and accommodating students who did not graduate from the Cal Poly ARCE undergraduate program. This paper offers a history of this masters program, describes these various issues, presents the current state of the program and makes recommendations for its future

Researchers and practitioners: A dual track path to tenure that works

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has published the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge (BOK) for the 21st Century and has produced a draft version of the follow-on BOK II, both which attempt to define the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of a civil engineer. A section of that document addresses who should teach this body of knowledge. It concludes that civil engineering faculty must be scholars, effective teachers, practitioners, and role models. In most universities, practitioners are included on the faculty as adjunct professors. They are paid less and are not viewed as full-fledged partners. The Architectural Engineering program at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo is one of the few exceptions where practitioners with a master’s degree in structural engineering, a structural engineering license, and a decade or more of experience in industry have an equal path to tenure. This paper cites the advantages and disadvantages of this program and addresses the most often expressed concerns for this alternative. Such issues as the professional development and scholarship components of the tenure process, the role of consulting, the integration of practitioners into the faculty, the value of their contacts to industry, and the types of classes the practitioners teach are all addressed. The purpose is to describe a model that other universities may wish to consider as the profession debates the CE faculty of the future

Enhancing an upper division structural dynamics course using K\u27nex toys

K’nex toys consist of various plastic rods and connectors cleverly-sized to allow the creation of a variety of structures. While the K’nex Corporation focuses on the K-12 market, there are a myriad of engineering applications that have been demonstrated at the university level. Many of these occur at the lower division level in freshman experience courses or introductory statics courses. Other applications have included constructing structural models for structural design and capstone courses. This paper takes this use of classroom technology even further by demonstrating how K’nex pieces can be used effectively in an upper-division, highly technical structural dynamics / seismic design course. For the past several years, students in ARCE 483 Seismic Analysis and Design at xx university have been designing experiments using K’nex pieces. The types of experiments that have resulted include the effects of fixity on natural frequency, flexible versus rigid performance, seismic activity on a bridge structure, soft story behavior in buildings, the effect of floor system stiffness on the deflection of a system, the effect of mass dampers on tall buildings, identifying building mode shapes, and even modeling a viscous damper using K’nex, sponges and jello. This paper will demonstrate that K’nex toys can be an inexpensive yet very effective classroom technology for creating physical models and demonstrations in even the most technical engineering courses. This paper is part of a larger effort to develop a consortium of schools that use K’nex product in the classroom. The consortium members will share ideas, communicate best practices, and encourage each other to improve engineering education and understanding through physical models. This paper will hopefully be considered for the Civil Engineering Division session on Classroom Technology

Spontaneous and deliberate future thinking: A dual process account

© 2019 Springer Nature.This is the final published version of an article published in Psychological Research, licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-bution 4.0 International License. Available online at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01262-7.In this article, we address an apparent paradox in the literature on mental time travel and mind-wandering: How is it possible that future thinking is both constructive, yet often experienced as occurring spontaneously? We identify and describe two ‘routes’ whereby episodic future thoughts are brought to consciousness, with each of the ‘routes’ being associated with separable cognitive processes and functions. Voluntary future thinking relies on controlled, deliberate and slow cognitive processing. The other, termed involuntary or spontaneous future thinking, relies on automatic processes that allows ‘fully-fledged’ episodic future thoughts to freely come to mind, often triggered by internal or external cues. To unravel the paradox, we propose that the majority of spontaneous future thoughts are ‘pre-made’ (i.e., each spontaneous future thought is a re-iteration of a previously constructed future event), and therefore based on simple, well-understood, memory processes. We also propose that the pre-made hypothesis explains why spontaneous future thoughts occur rapidly, are similar to involuntary memories, and predominantly about upcoming tasks and goals. We also raise the possibility that spontaneous future thinking is the default mode of imagining the future. This dual process approach complements and extends standard theoretical approaches that emphasise constructive simulation, and outlines novel opportunities for researchers examining voluntary and spontaneous forms of future thinking.Peer reviewe

Phage Therapy and Photodynamic Therapy: Low Environmental Impact Approaches to Inactivate Microorganisms in Fish Farming Plants

Owing to the increasing importance of aquaculture to compensate for the progressive worldwide reduction of natural fish and to the fact that several fish farming plants often suffer from heavy financial losses due to the development of infections caused by microbial pathogens, including multidrug resistant bacteria, more environmentally-friendly strategies to control fish infections are urgently needed to make the aquaculture industry more sustainable. The aim of this review is to briefly present the typical fish farming diseases and their threats and discuss the present state of chemotherapy to inactivate microorganisms in fish farming plants as well as to examine the new environmentally friendly approaches to control fish infection namely phage therapy and photodynamic antimicrobial therapy

Amiodarone Extraction by the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Circuit

Amiodarone is an anti-arrhythmic agent that is frequently used to treat tachycardias in critically ill adults and children. Because of physicochemical properties of amiodarone, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) circuits are expected to extract amiodarone from circulation, increasing the risk of therapeutic failure. The present study seeks to determine amiodarone extraction by the ECMO circuit. Amiodarone was administered to three ex vivo circuit configurations (n = 3 per configuration) to determine the effect of each circuit component on drug extraction. The circuits were primed with human blood; standard amiodarone doses were administered; and serial samples were collected over 24 hours. Additional circuits were primed with crystalloid fluid to analyze the effect of blood on extraction and to investigate circuit saturation by drug. The crystalloid circuits were dosed multiple times over 72 hours, including a massive dose at 48 hours. For both setups, the flow was set to 1 L/min. Drug was added to separate tubes containing the prime solution to serve as controls. Drug concentrations were quantified with a validated assay, and drug recovery was calculated for each sample. Mean recovery for the circuits and controls were compared to correct for drug degradation over time. Amiodarone was heavily extracted by all ECMO circuit configurations. Eight hours after dosing, mean recovery in the blood prime circuits was 13.5–22.1%. In the crystalloid prime circuits, drug recovery decreased even more rapidly, with a mean recovery of 22.0% at 30 minutes. Similarly, drug recovery decreased more quickly in the crystalloid prime controls than in the blood prime controls. Saturation was not achieved in the crystalloid prime circuits, as final amiodarone concentrations were at the lower limit of quantification. The results suggest that amiodarone is rapidly extracted by the ECMO circuit and that saturation is not achieved by standard doses. In vivo circuit extraction may cause decreased drug exposure