First Year Engineering Students’ Identification of Models in Engineering

Background To succeed in engineering careers, students must be able to create and apply models to certain problems. The different types of models include physical, mathematical, computational, graphical, and financial, which are used both in academics, research, and industry. However, many students struggle to define, create, and apply relevant models in their engineering courses. Purpose (Research Questions) The research questions investigated in this study are: (1) What types of models do engineering students identify before and after completing a first-year engineering course? (2) How do students’ responses compare across different courses (a graphical communications course - EGR 120 and a programming course - EGR 115), and sections? Design/Methods The data used for this study were collected in two introductory first-year engineering courses offered during Fall 2019, EGR 115 and EGR 120. Students’ responses to a survey about modeling were qualitatively analyzed. The survey was given at the beginning and the end of the courses. The data analyzed consisted of 560 pre and post surveys for EGR 115 and 384 pre and post surveys for EGR 120. Results Once the analysis is complete, we are hoping to find that the students can better define and apply models in their engineering courses after they have completed the EGR 115 and/or EGR 120 courses

Types of Models Identified by First-Year Engineering Students

This is a Complete Research paper. Understanding models is important for engineering students, but not often taught explicitly in first-year courses. Although there are many types of models in engineering, studies have shown that engineering students most commonly identify prototyping or physical models when asked about modeling. In order to evaluate students\u27 understanding of different types of models used in engineering and the effectiveness of interventions designed to teach modeling, a survey was developed. This paper describes development of a framework to categorize the types of engineering models that first-year engineering students discuss based on both previous literature and students\u27 responses to survey questions about models. In Fall 2019, the survey was administered to first-year engineering students to investigate their awareness of types of models and understanding of how to apply different types of models in solving engineering problems. Students\u27 responses to three questions from the survey were analyzed in this study: 1. What is a model in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields?, 2. List different types of models that you can think of., and 3. Describe each different type of model you listed. Responses were categorized by model type and the framework was updated through an iterative coding process. After four rounds of analysis of 30 different students\u27 responses, an acceptable percentage agreement was reached between independent researchers coding the data. Resulting frequencies of the various model types identified by students are presented along with representative student responses to provide insight into students\u27 understanding of models in STEM. This study is part of a larger project to understand the impact of modeling interventions on students\u27 awareness of models and their ability to build and apply models

ADOPTION OF DIGITIZATIONIN CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

Construction industries in countries like India are continuously growing over last two decades. The main problems faced by the industry are lack of planning, technology and skilled manpower. Theresearch proves that, the construction industry is lacking in terms of adopting the digitization approach.The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)applications have made the effective communication and monitoring possible for construction projects. Other technologies like 3D and 4D printing have made it possible to imagine the fast construction of the projects in smallest possible time

CHALLENGES FACED BY THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRIES IN INDIA

The construction industries in Indiain past few decades have faced the several issues. Being the second largest contributor to the GDP the sector has lot of expectation. The stakeholder of the sector areexpecting the sector to provide the excellent projects at the minimum cost at the same time the labours and the material cost is not in the control of the industry. The construction industry is going through the multiple challenges where the skills of the labours are to be enhanced; the technology to be improved, cost must be controlled and the quality to be improved. The enrichment in any one of the factor stated above has several concerns associated with it. Authors have offered the overview of the problems faced by the Indian construction industries in this manuscript

Efficacy of RADPAD protection drape in reducing radiation exposure in the catheterization laboratory—First Indian study

Background: Occupational radiation exposureis a growing problem due to increasing number and complexity of interventional procedures.The RADPAD is a lead-free sterile drape containing bismuth and barium that reduces scatter radiation during fluoroscopic procedures. We aimed to study the radiation exposure reduction to operators with the use of RADPAD and also measureradiation doses in different angiographic projections. Methods: 65 randomly selected patients undergoing elective complex percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures from January 2017 to 2017 were randomized in a 1:1 pattern with or without the RADPAD. Primary endpoint was the ratio of operator received dose in mrem to total radiation in Gyat the end of the procedure which was designated ‘’Relative operator exposure’’, with or without RADPAD. Results: Despite similar fluoroscopy times (20.4 ± 9.4 min with RADPAD vs. 19.4 ± 9.2 min without RADPAD, P = 0.871) and total radiation dose (3.4 ± 4.3 Gy with RADPAD vs. 2.3 ± 1.4 Gy, P = 0.198), the relative operator exposure was significantly less with RADPAD (1.39 ± 0.95) as compared to no RADPAD group (2.27 ± 1.4) (p = 0.004) amounting to a 39% reduction. Additionally mean radiation dose per shoot of recorded Left anterior oblique (LAO) oriented projections was 34.4 ± 15.7mGyvs 24.9 ± 12.9 mGy for a non LAO oriented projection. (p < 0.001). Conclusion: RADPAD significantly reduces radiation exposure to the primary operator during prolonged complex PCI procedures. Further, amongst all views, LAO views have significantly higher emitted radiation as compared to Non LAO views and need more radiation protection. Keywords: Chronic total occlusion, Left anterior oblique, Left main artery, Percutaneous coronary intervention, Roentgen equivalent ma

Challenges Faced by the Construction Industries in India

The construction industries in Indiain past few decades have faced the several issues. Being the second largest contributor to the GDP the sector has lot of expectation. The stakeholder of the sector areexpecting the sector to provide the excellent projects at the minimum cost at the same time the labours and the material cost is not in the control of the industry. The construction industry is going through the multiple challenges where the skills of the labours are to be enhanced; the technology to be improved, cost must be controlled and the quality to be improved. The enrichment in any one of the factor stated above has several concerns associated with it. Authors have offered the overview of the problems faced by the Indian construction industries in this manuscript

Clinical Mortality Review of COVID-19 Patients at Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, Nepal; A Retrospective Study

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has challenged the health system worldwide, including the low and middle income countries like Nepal. In view of the rising number of infections and prediction of multiple waves of this disease, mortalities due to COVID-19 need to be critically analyzed so that every possible effort could be made to prevent COVID-19 related mortalities in future. Main aim of this research was to study about the mortalities due to COVID-19 at a tertiary level hospital, in Nepal. This was a retrospective, observational study that included all inpatients from Sukraraj Tropical and Infectious Disease Hospital, who were reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction positive for SARS-COV-2 and died during hospital stay from January 2020 till January 2021. Medical records of the patients were evaluated. Out of 860 total admissions in a year, there were 50 mortalities in the study center. Out of 50 mortalities, majority were males (76%) with male to female ratio of 3.17:1. Most were above 65 years of age (72%) and had two or more comorbidities (64%). The most common comorbidities among the patients who had died during hospital stay were hypertension (58%) followed by diabetes mellitus (50%) and chronic obstructive airway disease (24%). The median duration from the symptom onset to death was 18 days, ranged from the minimum of 2 days till maximum of 39 days. D-dimer was found to be &gt;1 mg/L in 58% cases and ferritin was &gt;500 ng/ml in 42% patients at presentation. A total of 42% patients had thrombocytopenia, 80% patients had lymphocytopenia and 60% had Neutrophil to Lymphocyte ratio &gt;11.75 with the mean NLR of 18.38. Of total mortalities, 16% patients also showed microbiological evidence of secondary infection; Male gender, age more than 65 years, multiple comorbidities with lymphocytopenia, elevated Neutrophil lymphocyte ratio and elevated inflammatory markers were risk factors found in majority of mortalities in our study. These findings could be utilized for early triage and risk assessment in COVID-19 patients so that aggressive treatment strategies could be employed at the earliest to reduce mortalities due to COVID-19 in future