Agriculture Study Abroad program to Poland

The Technology Travel Course (TSM 496) is an elective course that meets the university-wide international perspectives requirement. The course has a curricular home in the department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering (ABE), Iowa State University (ISU). It enables instructors to develop and offer a study abroad program structured as a faculty-led trip abroad. This course is also an excellent opportunity for students to learn/compare technology concepts and applications in an international context that is encouraged by the ABE External Advisory Board. The objectives of this paper are to (1) Review the application of TSM 496 to Ag Study Abroad trip to Poland (with cultural trips to Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, and Ukraine, and to (2) summarize curricular enhancement of student learning objectives (SLOs) and competencies. The course has been offered yearly since 2011, and served 48 students from several majors in Agriculture & Life Sciences and Engineering colleges. The pre-departure course is focused on teaming up ISU students with students at two agricultural universities in Poland. Teams develop comparative projects focused on agriculture with specific emphasis on animal systems production, technology, environment, sustainability, and regulations. Projects are finalized and presented jointly at special Polish-American Student Workshops. The joint project format creates an opportunity to make friends with students in Poland while working on international projects. The scientific part of the program is a mix of field trips to farms, plants, co-ops, lab tours, cultural sites and activities. Students have many opportunities to socialize, get inspired by rich culture, history, science, agro business attitudes and the spirit of change. SLOs are measured with the program surveys. Currently 65 SLOs/competencies are enhanced with 17 provided by this program (26%). In addition, 25 new competencies are gained, a 38% increase to the new total of 90. Students highly rate this learning and often list it as a highlight of their college career thus far. Data analysis of the Program Evaluation Surveys shows high degree of developing student skills, meeting and enhancement of class goals, departmental and college SLOs

2017 update - Air Quality Laboratory & Olfactometry Laboratory Equipment - Koziel\u27s Lab

EQUIPMENT Major equipment in Dr. Koziel’s laboratory ([email protected]) see reference list below for complete descriptions of equipment used in previous research. For odorous VOC gas quantification: VOCs: Agilent 6890 GC-MS-FID-PID (5975C) VOCs: multidimensional GC-MS-Olfactometry (based on Agilent GC-MS platform) equipped with thermal desorption for sorbent tubes. NH3 and H2S (Drager electrochemical portable meter). INNOVA (NH3, CO2) Greenhouse gas GC-FID-ECD (for CO2, CH4, and N2O

Variable-fidelity optimization of microwave filters using co-kriging and trust regions

In this paper, a variable-fidelity optimization methodology for simulation-driven design optimization of filters is presented. We exploit electromagnetic (EM) simulations of different accuracy. Densely sampled but cheap low-fidelity EM data is utilized to create a fast kriging interpolation model (the surrogate), subsequently used to find an optimum design of the high-fidelity EM model of the filter under consideration. The high-fidelity data accumulated during the optimization process is combined with the existing surrogate using the co-kriging technique. This allows us to improve the surrogate model accuracy while approaching the optimum. The convergence of the algorithm is ensured by embedding it into the trust region framework that adaptively adjusts the search radius based on the quality of the predictions made by the co-kriging model. Three filter design cases are given for demonstration and verification purposes

Successful grant-writing strategies for junior scientists: An American public university perspective

The objective of this article was to summarize selected successful grant writing strategies from the perspective of an American public university faculty member. Early sections focused on describing the American public university system aspects that are the background to incentivizing and rewarding successful grant writing. The latter sections focused on examples of resources from the personal to the national level for grant wring. The article concluded with tips for successful grant-writing for junior scientists that are known to work regardless of a particular academic system. The author is a faculty member of one of the first public universities in U.S. and a member of #1 ranked department in U.S. in the area of agricultural and biological engineering. The author had a great opportunity to mentor junior scientists in Poland as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. This article is a timely contribution to ongoing efforts to reform the Polish university system. Specific solutions dealing with promoting and incentivizing excellence discussed in this article can be a useful input for consideration

A study of contact binaries with large temperature differencies between components

We present an extensive analysis of new light and radial-velocity (RV) curves, as well as high-quality broadening-function (BF) profiles of twelve binary systems for which a contact configuration with large temperature differencies between components has been reported in the literature. We find that six systems (V1010 Oph, WZ Cyg, VV Cet, DO Cas, FS Lup, V747 Cen) have near-contact configurations. For the remaining systems (CX Vir, FT Lup, BV Eri, FO Hya, CN And, BX And), our solutions of the new observations once again converge in a contact configuration with large temperature differencies between the components. However, the bright regions discovered in the BFs for V747 Cen, CX Vir, FT Lup, BV Eri, FO Hya, and CN And, and further attributed to hot spots, shed new light on the physical processes taking place between the components and imply the possibility that the contact configurations obtained from light- and RV-curve modelling are a spurious result.Comment: Submited to Acta Astronomic

Odorous Chemical Emissions from Animal Buildings

This study was an add-on study to the National Air Emission Monitoring Study (NAEMS). The objective of this study was to measure odor emissions and corresponding concentrations and emissions of target odorous gases. Odor and odorous gas measurements at four NAEMS sites (dairy barns in Wisconsin-WI5B and Indiana-IN5B, swine finisher barn in Indiana-IN3B and swine gestation/farrowing barns in Iowa-IA4B) were conducted during four-13 weeks periods over ~1 year. Odorous gas samples were collected every two weeks using sorbent tubes and analyzed by the automated one-step thermal desorption-GC-MS-Olfactometry. In this paper, we summarize measured gas concentrations and emissions of twenty odorous gases from four sites. All the gas concentrations were reported at dry standard conditions, i.e. 1atm, 20 ⁰C. Based on the one-year measurement for four selected sites, the average volatile fatty acids (VFAs) concentrations ranged between1.1 and 98 µg dsm-3. The average phenolics and indolics concentrations varied from 0.8 to 31.3 µg dsm-3. The average sulfur containing compounds concentrations were from 0.02 to 1.5 µg dsm-3. The total volatile organic compound VOC emission rates for 20 compounds for four sites ranged between 33.9 and 743 mg/hr-AU. Only acetic acid (p\u3c0.05) and propanoic acid (p\u3c0.1) had a seasonal significant difference for IA4B. For IN3B, 4-ethyl phenol and indole and most of VFAs (except hexanoic and heptanoic acid) have the seasonal significant differences. At the WI5B dairy site, there were five VFAs (acetic, propanoic, 2-methyl propanoic, butyric and 3-methylbuanoic acid) and one phenolics (4-methyl phenol) showing a seasonal significant difference. Only three compounds (2-methoxyphenol, 1-(2- aminophenyl)-ethanone and indole) had a seasonal significant difference for IN5B. Between dairy sites (WI5B vs. IN5B), acetic, propanoic, 2-methyl propanoic, butyric, and 3-methyl butanoic acids were significantly different. Most of odorants were significantly different except heptanoic acid, 1-(2-aminophenyl)-ethanone and 3-methyl indole, between the two swine sites (IA4B vs. IN3B). Between the two different species (Dairy vs. Swine), five odorants including acetic and heptanoic acid, phenol, 4- ethylphenol, 1-(2-aminophenyl) ethanone were not significantly different, whereas the other 10 compounds measured were