New Trends of English Teaching in Outstanding Engineers’ Education

AbstractEnglish has become more important to learn than ever before with the development of the world. And English teaching is one of the necessary growing areas in outstanding engineers’ training education. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some issues associated with the new trends of English teaching when it comes to outstanding engineers’ education. The paper tries to give information about the requirements of outstanding engineers’ education for English teaching, and is also mentioned training English applicable skills, combination of professional knowledge, and development of faculty, which attribute English teachers to make educational environment more enjoyable. Outstanding engineers’ education provides various new possibilities and latest trends both for teachers and students

Positional Precision Analysis of Orthomosaics Derived from Drone Captured Aerial Imagery

The advancement of drones has revolutionized the production of aerial imagery. Using a drone with its associated flight control and image processing applications, a high resolution orthorectified mosaic from multiple individual aerial images can be produced within just a few hours. However, the positional precision and accuracy of any orthomosaic produced should not be overlooked. In this project, we flew a DJI Phantom drone once a month over a seven-month period over Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches, Texas, USA resulting in seven orthomosaics of the same location. We identified 30 ground control points (GCPs) based on permanent features in the cemetery and recorded the geographic coordinates of each GCP on each of the seven orthomosaics. Analyzing the cluster of each GCP containing seven coincident positions depicts the positional precision of the orthomosaics. Our analysis is an attempt to answer the fundamental question, “Are we obtaining the same geographic coordinates for the same feature found on every aerial image mosaic captured by a drone over time?” The results showed that the positional precision was higher at the center of the orthomosaic compared to the edge areas. In addition, the positional precision was lower parallel to the direction of the drone flight

Accuracy Assessment on Drone Measured Heights at Different Height Levels

The advancement in unmanned aerial system (UAS) technology has made it possible to attain an aerial unit, commonly known as a drone, at an affordable price with increasing precision and accuracy in positioning and photographing. While aerial photography is the most common use of a drone, many of the models available in the market are also capable of measuring height, the height of the drone above ground, or the altitude above the mean sea level. On board a drone, a barometer is used to control the flight height by detecting the atmospheric pressure change; while a GPS receiver is mainly used to determine the horizontal position of the drone. While both barometer and GPS are capable of measuring height, they are based on different algorithms. Our study goal was to assess the accuracy of height measurement by a drone, with different landing procedures and GPS settings

Liquid-liquid phase equilibria for the ternary (neopentyl glycol + sodium formate + water) system

ABSTRACT. Liquid–liquid equilibrium data and the phase diagrams were measured for the ternary (neopentyl glycol + sodium formate + water) system at various temperatures of 303.15, 313.15 and 323.15 K. The effect of temperature on the conjugate phase and the tie-line length of the investigated system have been studied. The results showed that the length of the tie-line increases and the two-phase area was slightly increased by decreasing temperature. The fitting parameters of the Pirdashti and Merchuk equations were obtained with the temperature dependence expressed in the linear form, respectively. Compared with the Pirdashti equation, the binodal curves were satisfactorily described using the Merchuk equation at T = (303.15, 313.15 and 323.15) K, and the critical points at different temperatures were estimated by extrapolation. Furthermore, the Hand, Othmer-Tobias and Bachman models were used for the correlation of the phase behavior of the studied system. According to the reported correlation coefficients values, it was found that the measured tie-line data have acceptable consistency and the better fitness was with Othmer-Tobias equation.     KEY WORDS: Liquid–liquid equilibrium, Neopentyl glycol, Phase diagram, Merchuk Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2022, 36(4), 915-922.                                                            DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v36i4.1

How the leading Chinese real estate brokerage transformed into a digital platform business

Purpose In this article, we study how a Chinese real estate broker - Lianjia successfully transformed itself into Beike - China’s leading digital platform for housing transactions and services. We explain the motivation behind this platform transformation, how it turned out, and what are the lessons learned for other companies contemplating a platform transformation. Beike’s lessons are significant as they not only can help the companies achieve growth via platform transformation but also create social value by contributing to higher service quality in traditional service industries. Design/methodology/approach We draw upon comprehensive archival research into Beike, and our many years of ongoing research on platform strategy and business growth strategy. Findings This article provides important lessons for companies in traditional service industries on how to expand growth via digital platforms. We summarize four key lessons learned: 1) data is central to success in platform transformation; 2) industry knowledge and experience play an important role; 3) the right platform governance is critical in value creation; 4) harness the double powers of platform and digital transformation. Research limitations/implications More research on digital platforms and platform transformation in traditional service industries is needed to delve into the underlying factors and delineate the boundary conditions for specific details in this strategy and implementation. Practical implications This article is useful to business executives, academics, management consultants, and entrepreneurs interested in learning more about how to use digital platforms to achieve business growth and create economic and social value. In particular, Beike’s case offers inspiration and valuable lessons to companies in traditional service industries and helps them consider the factors that are important in the process of platform transformation. Social Implications This article on Beike provides an innovative solution to business leaders in traditional service industries grappling with a lack of professional standards and trust to use digital platforms to elevate service quality and create social value. Originality/value This article is unique and add value because Beike is a pioneer of using the digital platform to achieve growth and transform traditional service industries. Our study shows that platform transformation not only can help a company in a traditional industry achieve impressive growth but at the same time can create enormous social value by elevating the service quality of the whole industry

SPATIALLY EXPLICIT MODEL OF AREAS BETWEEN SUITABLE BLACK BEAR HABITAT IN EAST TEXAS AND BLACK BEAR POPULATIONS IN LOUISIANA, ARKANSAS, AND OKLAHOMA

Although black bears (Ursus americanus, Ursus americanus luteolus) were once found throughout the south-central United States, unregulated harvest and habitat loss resulted in severe range retractions and by the beginning of the twentieth century populations in Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas were nearing extirpation. In response to these losses, translocation programs were initiated in Arkansas (1958-1968 & 2000-2006) and Louisiana (1964-1967 & 2001-2009). These programs successfully restored bears to portions of Louisiana and Arkansas, and, as populations in Arkansas began dispersing, to Oklahoma. In contrast, east Texas remains unoccupied despite the existence of suitable habitat in the region. To facilitate the establishment of a breeding population in east Texas, I sought to identify suitable habitat which bears could use for dispersal between known bear locations in Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma and the east Texas recovery units. I utilized Maxent, a machine learning software, to model habitat suitability in this region. I collected known black bear presence locations (n=18,241) from state agencies in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and east Texas and filtered them to reduce spatial autocorrelation (n=664). I also collected spatial data sets based on known black bear ecology to serve as environmental predictor variables. The model was developed at 30-m resolution and encompassed 417,076 km 2. The final model was selected to minimize model over-fitting while maintaining a high test Area Under the Receiver Operating Curve (AUC TEST)score. For final model interpretation and analysis, I used the 10th percentile training threshold available in Maxent which excludes the lowest 10% of predicted presence suitability scores from the binary predictive map, thus resulting in a more conservative predictive map. The final 10th percentile model predicted 43.7% of the pixels in the study area as suitable and 53.7 % percent of the pixels identified as potential recovery units by Kaminski et al. (2013, 2014) as suitable. To focus management efforts, I identified three movement zones with a high proportion of suitable habitat within which connectivity analyses were performed. Suitable patches greater than or equal to 12 km2 were classified within ArcGIS as stepping stone patches. Buffers of 3,500 m were generated around these patches to determine the level of functional connectivity in each zone. The final Maxent model confirmed that suitable bear habitat exists between source populations and the east Texas recovery units. The importance of percent of mast producing forest, percentage of cultivated crops and percentage of protected lands reflect what is known about basic bear biology and ecology. Furthermore, 153 stepping stone patches were identified within the movement zones, demonstrating that there is a reasonable chance of bears naturally dispersing to east Texas using the habitat identified in this study. Thus, protection of existing bear habitat and the stepping stone patches identified in this study should be a priority for managers seeking to facilitate natural bear recolonization of east Texas

Accuracy of Unmanned Aerial System (Drone) Height Measurements

Vertical height estimates of earth surface features using an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) are important in natural resource management quantitative assessments. An important research question concerns both the accuracy and precision of vertical height estimates acquired with a UAS and to determine if it is necessary to land a UAS between individual height measurements or if GPS derived height versus barometric pressure derived height while using a DJI Phantom 3 would affect height accuracy and precision. To examine this question, height along a telescopic height pole on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University (SFASU) were estimated at 2, 5, 10 and 15 meters above ground using a DJI Phantom 3 UAS. The DJI Phantom 3 UAS (i.e., drone) was flown up and down the telescopic height pole to estimate height at the 2, 5, 10 and 15 meter locations using four different user controlled flight modes with a total of 30 observations per flight mode. Flight mode configurations consisted of having GPS estimate height while landing the drone between flights, non-GPS mode to estimate height via barometric pressure while landing the drone between flights, flying continuously up and down the height pole while estimating height with GPS on, and flying continuously up and down the height pole in non-GPS mode to estimate height via barometric pressure. A total of 480 height measurements were recorded (30 measurements per height interval per all four flight mode combinations). Standard deviation results indicated that height measurements taken with the drone were less precise when landing was not reset between measurements. Root mean square error (RMSE) analysis indicated that having the landing reset without GPS on achieved the highest accuracy of all measurements taken. An ANOVA conducted on the absolute errors reconfirmed that having the landing reset before each height measurement using the drone achieved higher accuracy compared to flying the drone continuously. This indicates the practical application of height measurement of the DJI Phantom 3 UAS and the importance of resetting the UAS before each height measurement