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52 news posts in Engineering

Engineering

16 Jan 2017

Functional Ceramics – new specialty section in Frontiers in Materials

Frontiers in Materials is proud to announce the launch of its newest section – Functional Ceramics. Led by Specialty Chief Editor Sheikh Akbar, professor at the Ohio State University, the section aims to publish high quality articles on the processing, structure and properties of ceramic materials and will encompass the whole spectrum of dimensionalities from nanoparticles to bulk ceramic materials. Functional Ceramics will cover ground-breaking advances in design, theory and simulation, and multifunctional performance, as well as multidisciplinary and unique processing, and characterization techniques of ceramic materials. Akbar points to a few the key areas of the section: “One key area of interest involves work on surface patterning of functional ceramics, using novel and inexpensive process pathways that do not require lithography, instead exploiting intrinsic material properties to create oriented and ordered nanostructures represent a paradigm shift in the field of microelectronics, sensor technology, data storage, biotechnology and semiconductor industry. There are opportunities for multidisciplinary studies involving characterization of surface/interface structures and characteristics of gas-solid, liquid-solid interaction, and biological cell attachment and proliferation on the patterned structures. Such studies combined with computer modelling and simulation would aid in the fundamental understanding of the mechanisms allowing process control to create a […]

Engineering

26 Oct 2016

Sustainable and resilient structural design to combat earthquake disturbances

By Eva Brown, Frontiers Science Writer To help buildings become more resilient to earthquakes, scientists have taken measures to analyze various vibrational modes with the goal of creating safe and sustainable structures for future generations. Professor Izuru Takewaki and his team based at Kyoto University in Japan have centered their studies around the areas of earthquake engineering and the structural design of buildings. They are working towards grasping an understanding of how best to bring resilience in buildings — especially against natural disasters such as earthquakes. Their aim is to create safer and more sustainable constructions. “During Japan’s Tōhoku earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, many people were killed, so I’m working on developing safe designs of buildings,” Takewaki explains. “In my field we are looking at the worst case analysis as you don’t know when, where or how intense a disaster will be.  We are also looking at the resilience of the buildings to withstand earthquakes.” In order to set the ground for progress, the team set out to measure the different vibrational states, which would enable them to develop safer building designs that are more stable and structurally secure. This, in turn, will enable the structures to withstand the […]

Engineering

07 Jun 2016

You are not as anonymous as you think online

Our online browsing behavior leaves a unique digital personality signature which can identify us by Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Frontiersin.org Hiding online is harder than you’d think, a new study published on Frontiers in ICT has revealed. Your browsing behavior can indicate your personality and provide a unique digital signature which can identify you, sometimes after just 30-minutes of browsing. “Our research suggests a person’s personality traits can be deduced by their general internet usage. This differs from other studies that have only looked at the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter,” said Dr Ikusan R. Adeyemi, a research scholar at the Universiti Teknologi, Malaysia, and lead author of this new study. He continued; “This opens up opportunities for new research into understanding online behavior.” Research linking personality traits to computer usage has typically focused on social media. For example, extrovert people tend to use these platforms to enlarge their boundary of friends and influence, while introvert individuals spend more time on social media to compensate for a probable lack of physical interaction. However, a person’s general online browsing behavior can also reflect their choice, preference and reflexes, which is largely controlled by their unique psychological characteristics. This latest study recruited volunteers […]

Engineering

31 May 2016

Complexity of the unexpected

by Mikhail Prokopenko, Centre for Complex Systems, University of Sydney Complex systems is a new approach to science, engineering and management that studies how relationships between parts give rise to the collective behaviors of the entire system, and how the system interacts with its environment.  Dynamics of a complex system cannot be predicted, or explained, as a linear aggregation of the individual dynamics of its components, and the interactions among the many constituent microscopic parts bring about macroscopic phenomena that cannot be understood by considering any single part alone (“the whole is more than the sum of the parts”).   Complex systems are often confused with complicated systems which may also comprise a large number of components and interactions. This is not surprising: after all, both concepts express a notion opposite to being simple or straightforward. The two terms also share a common Latin origin: complexus originates from complectī ‎(“to entwine or encircle”), derived in turn from com- ‎(“together”) and plectere ‎(“to weave”), while complicātus is a form of complicāre (“to fold together”) which augments  com- ‎(“together”) with plecāre (“to fold”). So how significant is the difference between weaving and folding some parts together?    Naively, this subtle distinction reflects on different […]