Nonlinear dynamic intertwining of rods with self-contact

Twisted marine cables on the sea floor can form highly contorted three-dimensional loops that resemble tangles. Such tangles or hockles are topologically equivalent to the plectomenes that form in supercoiled DNA molecules. The dynamic evolution of these intertwined loops is studied herein using a computational rod model that explicitly accounts for dynamic self-contact. Numerical solutions are presented for an illustrative example of a long rod subjected to increasing twist at one end. The solutions reveal the dynamic evolution of the rod from an initially straight state, through a buckled state in the approximate form of a helix, through the dynamic collapse of this helix into a near-planar loop with one site of self-contact, and the subsequent intertwining of this loop with multiple sites of self-contact. This evolution is controlled by the dynamic conversion of torsional strain energy to bending strain energy or, alternatively by the dynamic conversion of twist (Tw) to writhe (Wr). KEY WORDS Rod Dynamics, Self-contact, Intertwining, DNA Supercoiling, Cable HocklingComment: 35 pages, 9 figures, submitted to Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Science

Practical Implementation of Machine tool Metrology and Maintenance Management Systems

Maximising asset utilisation and minimising downtime and waste are becoming increasingly important to all manufacturing facilities as competition increases and profits decrease. The tools to assist with monitoring these machining processes are becoming more and more in demand. A system designed to fulfil the needs of machine tool operators and supervisors has been developed and its impact on the precision manufacturing industry is being considered. The benefits of implementing this system, compared to traditional methods, will be discussed here

INTERNATIONAL COLLISION REGULATIONS FOR AUTOMATIC COLLISION AVOIDANCE

This thesis considers the relationship between collision regulations and an automatic collision avoidance system (ACAS). Automation of ship operations is increasingly common. The automation of the collision avoidance task may have merit on grounds of reduced manual workload and the elimination of human error. Work to date by engineers and computer programmers has focused on modelling the requirements of the current collision regulations. This thesis takes a new approach and indicates that legislative change is a necessary precursor to the implementation of a fully automatic collision avoidance system. A descriptive analysis has been used to consider the nature of the collision avoidance problem and the nature of rules as a solution. The importance of coordination between vessels is noted and three requirements for coordination are established. These are a mutual perception of: risk, the strategy to be applied, and the point of manoeuvre. The use of rules to achieve coordination are considered. The analysis indicates that the current collision regulations do not provide the means to coordinate vessels. A review of current and future technology that may be applied to the collision avoidance problem has been made. Several ACAS scenarios are contrived. The compatibility of the scenarios and the current collision regulations is considered. It is noted that both machine sensors and processors affect the ability to comply with the rules. The case is made for judicial recognition of a discrete rule-base for the sake of an ACAS. This leads to the prospect of quantified collision regulations for application by mariners. A novel rule-base to match a pm1icular ACAS scenario has been devised. The rules are simple and brief. They avoid inputs dependent on vision and visibility, and meet all the aforementioned coordination requirements. Their application by mariners to two-vessel open sea, encounters was tested on a navigation simulator. The experimental testing of such a rule-base is unique. Mariners were given experience of applying the rule-base in certain circumstances and asked by questionnaire what their agreeable action would be. This was compared with their usual action. While the number of experiments was small, an indication was given of the impm1ant issues in applying a quantified rule-base. Aspects identified for fm1her study include the testing of rule base elements in isolation, and the use of quantified rules in multi-ship and confined water encounters.The Nautical Institut

High-Tech Tools for Teaching Physics: the Physics Education Technology Project

This article appeared in the Journal of Online Teaching and Learning September 15, 2006.This paper introduces a new suite of computer simulations from the Physics Education Technology (PhET) project, identifies features of these educational tools, and demonstrates their utility. We compare the use of PhET simulations to the use of more traditional educational resources in lecture, laboratory, recitation and informal settings of introductory college physics. In each case we demonstrate that simulations are as productive, or more productive, for developing student conceptual understanding as real equipment, reading resources, or chalk-talk lectures. We further identify six key characteristic features of these simulations that begin to delineate why these are productive tools. The simulations: support an interactive approach, employ dynamic feedback, follow a constructivist approach, provide a creative workplace, make explicit otherwise inaccessible models or phenomena, and constrain students productively

It’s About Time: Gaining Insights from Turnaround Time Metrics

Rutgers University is a R1 Research Institution with $929M in Sponsored Research funding in FY 2023 and$747M in Research Expenditures in 2022 as per the HERD survey. Since forming in 2019, the Data, Analytics and Business Intelligence team within the Office for Research has grown to three members, all with the mission of providing accurate and timely data about the Rutgers research enterprise for both internal leadership and decision makers across the university. The Office for Research leadership was receiving complaints from the field about sponsored research awards taking too long to be set up. The Data, Analytics and Business Intelligence team was tasked to find out: 1. Is this a common issue? 2. Is this a localized issue? 3. What’s causing this? Our team determined that by calculating the start and end of processes, and by categorizing responsible party within those processes, we can figure out what an average user might experience and then dig deeper into the outliers. We involved IT to extract the data from the award set up system into the data warehouse, and ultimately a Tableau data source. We also met with the business team to better understand the data in their system and define how their processes should be categorized, and if any of their processes might need to change to help generate important data. The final deliverable was a published Tableau Dashboard that leadership and the business unit could access that shows turnaround time trends broken down in various ways, with the option to drill down into outliers without leaving the dashboard. Since then, we’ve been able to replicate this method across other Office for Research business units including the teams managing IRB and IACUC protocols. Our presentation would include: 1. The problem that was presented to us 2. The process we followed 3. Samples of the dashboards we created 4. The outcome and lessons learned 5. Guiding questions on how other schools can use this method and replicate it across multiple systems within their Research Office

Generating Reliable Collaboration Data: A Proof-of-Concept Project Using Research Administration Data

Central administration at Rutgers University requested help from the Office for Research to develop a proof-of-concept tool to count collaborations between faculty, departments, schools and chancellor units across the university. This presentation will discuss how the Data, Analytics and Business Intelligence team focused on research administration and research output data to define a “collaboration,” structure available data, create interactive visualizations and allow end users to customize the level of detail displayed. This presentation will begin by discussing the importance of generating reliable collaboration data in a university setting including use cases for the data. It will then describe the dataset that was used for the proof-of-concept project and discuss why these sources were important. Finally, the presentation will discuss future development goals and collaborators for the collaboration project