Industry Automation and Controls Lab

This work details our efforts to build a new industrial automation lab for the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Electrical Engineering department from the ground up. Thanks to a donation of Modicon M580 programmable logic controllers (PLCs) from Schneider Electric, we built a lab hardware layout to support a learning environment for students. The Electrical Engineering department currently doesn’t offer any courses for students to learn about automation in topics more closely following the topics learned in their curriculum. It will be beneficial for the school and the students to have graduates in the major with some knowledge of controls in the field of industrial automation. Many large corporations including Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Yokogawa, and Mitsubishi Electric all have substantial jobs in the workplace. For the lab, research led to multiple different designs of how to layout the DIN rail and other equipment. Our final layout placed a strong emphasis on reducing cost, including removing a metal backplane and using a flexible mounting system for the touchscreen. The results shown in the the work illustrate the flexibility of the lab bench setup moving forward, as future students will need room for growth as they continue to develop the lab. Additional time was spent developing lab instructions for the first lab of the course, a simple introduction into programming with ladder logic and function block diagram

Evaluation of prognostic risk models for postoperative pulmonary complications in adult patients undergoing major abdominal surgery: a systematic review and international external validation cohort study

Background Stratifying risk of postoperative pulmonary complications after major abdominal surgery allows clinicians to modify risk through targeted interventions and enhanced monitoring. In this study, we aimed to identify and validate prognostic models against a new consensus definition of postoperative pulmonary complications. Methods We did a systematic review and international external validation cohort study. The systematic review was done in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We searched MEDLINE and Embase on March 1, 2020, for articles published in English that reported on risk prediction models for postoperative pulmonary complications following abdominal surgery. External validation of existing models was done within a prospective international cohort study of adult patients (≥18 years) undergoing major abdominal surgery. Data were collected between Jan 1, 2019, and April 30, 2019, in the UK, Ireland, and Australia. Discriminative ability and prognostic accuracy summary statistics were compared between models for the 30-day postoperative pulmonary complication rate as defined by the Standardised Endpoints in Perioperative Medicine Core Outcome Measures in Perioperative and Anaesthetic Care (StEP-COMPAC). Model performance was compared using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROCC). Findings In total, we identified 2903 records from our literature search; of which, 2514 (86·6%) unique records were screened, 121 (4·8%) of 2514 full texts were assessed for eligibility, and 29 unique prognostic models were identified. Nine (31·0%) of 29 models had score development reported only, 19 (65·5%) had undergone internal validation, and only four (13·8%) had been externally validated. Data to validate six eligible models were collected in the international external validation cohort study. Data from 11 591 patients were available, with an overall postoperative pulmonary complication rate of 7·8% (n=903). None of the six models showed good discrimination (defined as AUROCC ≥0·70) for identifying postoperative pulmonary complications, with the Assess Respiratory Risk in Surgical Patients in Catalonia score showing the best discrimination (AUROCC 0·700 [95% CI 0·683–0·717]). Interpretation In the pre-COVID-19 pandemic data, variability in the risk of pulmonary complications (StEP-COMPAC definition) following major abdominal surgery was poorly described by existing prognostication tools. To improve surgical safety during the COVID-19 pandemic recovery and beyond, novel risk stratification tools are required. Funding British Journal of Surgery Society