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  Essentials of Structural Dynamics

  Luke S. Lee and Hector Estrada

  A concise introduction to the principles and practices of structural dynamics. This hands-on textbook lays out essential structural dynamics concepts and computational methods. The textbook reinforces key concepts and connects theoretical formulations to civil engineering practice. Detailed, step-by-step examples cover all essential aspects of structural dynamics. Written by a pair of experts, Essentials of Structural Dynamics is ideal for both students and practicing engineers who need to brush up on current techniques and computing tools. The book includes access to a various digital ancillaries, including image galleries, PowerPoint lecture notes, and MATLAB scripts.

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  Airborne Systems and Underwater Monitoring

  Elizabeth Basha, Jason To-Tran, Davis Young, Sean Thalken, and Christopher Uramoto

  Wetlands monitoring requires accurate topographic and bathymetric maps. Regular creation of these with minimal cost and reduced environmental impact, can be achieved using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This chapter introduces a set of systems needed to create this automation starting with an automatic image labeling system, an online classification system for differentiating land and water, offline bathymetric map creation, and online bathymetric map creation. All systems have been implemented, simulated, and field tested where possible.

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  Materials for Civil Engineering: Properties and Applications in Infrastructure

  Luke S. Lee and Hector Estrada

  This comprehensive textbook offers detailed coverage of the properties of the construction materials that civil engineers use in the field. Students will learn about material characteristics and find out how to analyze material properties and select appropriate materials for civil engineering projects of all types and sizes. Materials for Civil Engineering : Properties and Applications in Infrastructure begins with an introduction to basic materials science and selection, and contains subsequent chapters devoted to steel, concrete, masonry, wood, asphalt, aggregates, and FRP composites. Key characteristics, manufacturing processes, and sustainability issues associated with each type of material are included. Data analysis of materials is emphasized throughout, with references to ASTM standards for material testing.

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  Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

  Osvaldo Jimenez

  Have you ever wanted to know which games to use in your classroom, library, or afterschool program, or even at home? Which games can help teach preschoolers, K-12, college students, or adults? What can you use for science, literature, or critical thinking skills? This book explores 100 different games and how educators have used the games to teach – what worked and didn’t work and their tips and techniques.

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  Spent

  Osvaldo Jimenez

  Have you ever wanted to know which games to use in your classroom, library, or afterschool program, or even at home? Which games can help teach preschoolers, K-12, college students, or adults? What can you use for science, literature, or critical thinking skills? This book explores 100 different games and how educators have used the games to teach – what worked and didn’t work and their tips and techniques.

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  The Realm of Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) Computing

  Vivek K. Pallipuram and Jinzhu Gao

  The goal of the chapter is to introduce the upper-level Computer Engineering/Computer Science undergraduate (UG) students to general-purpose graphical processing unit (GPGPU) computing. The specific focus of the chapter is on GPGPU computing using the Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) C framework due to the following three reasons: (1) Nvidia GPUs are ubiquitous in high-performance computing, (2) CUDA is relatively easy to understand versus OpenCL, especially for UG students with limited heterogeneous device programming experience, and (3) CUDA experience simplifies learning OpenCL and OpenACC. The chapter consists of nine pedagogical sections with several active-learning exercises to effectively engage students with the text. The chapter opens with an introduction to GPGPU computing. The chapter sections include: (1) Data parallelism; (2) CUDA program structure; (3) CUDA compilation flow; (4) CUDA thread organization; (5) Kernel: Execution configuration and kernel structure; (6) CUDA memory organization; (7) CUDA optimizations; (8) Case study: Image convolution on GPUs; and (9) GPU computing: The future. The authors believe that the chapter layout facilitates effective student-learning by starting from the basics of GPGPU computing and then leading up to the advanced concepts. With this chapter, the authors aim to equip students with the necessary skills to undertake graduate-level courses on GPU programming and make a strong start with undergraduate research.

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  Biomaterials in Mechano-oncology: Means to Tune Materials to Study

  Shelly R. Peyton, Maria Gencoglu, Sualyneth Galarza, and Alyssa D. Schwartz

  ECM stiffness is emerging as a prognostic marker of tumor aggression or potential for relapse. However, conflicting reports muddle the question of whether increasing or decreasing stiffness is associated with aggressive disease. This chapter discusses this controversy in more detail, but the fact that tumor stiffening plays a key role in cancer progression and in regulating cancer cell behaviors is clear. The impact of having in vitro biomaterial systems that could capture this stiffening during tumor evolution is very high. These cell culture platforms could help reveal the mechanistic underpinnings of this evolution, find new therapeutic targets to inhibit the cross talk between tumor development and ECM stiffening, and serve as better, more physiologically relevant platforms for drug screening.

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  Reciprocal research and design: The wicked problem of changing math in the family

  Shelley Goldman and Osvaldo Jiménez

  This chapter demonstrates how a reciprocal research and design (RR&D) model is possible and has value in design. The authors see other design-based researchers in the learning sciences relying on basic studies as part of their development projects. The RR&D process had the benefit of creating links between the theory-building work we do in learning research while keeping us involved with and contributing to the lives of families. The authors are pleased that we have been able to engage in a process that enables us to manage professional missions while maintaining the spirit of empathy-driven design processes. The social experiences with math that the chapter uncovered in its initial interview study did not carry forward when families were not setting aside special family time to meet with us. Therefore, this is a cautionary tale for those practicing user-centered design that includes human-computer interface design and field testing.

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  Nonlinear Systems: Design, Analysis, Estimation and Control

  Dongbin Lee, Tim Burg, and Christos Volos

  The book consists mainly of two parts: Chapter 1 - Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 - Chapter 14. Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 treat design techniques based on linearization of nonlinear systems. An analysis of nonlinear system over quantum mechanics is discussed in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 to Chapter 7 are estimation methods using Kalman filtering while solving nonlinear control systems using iterative approach. Optimal approaches are discussed in Chapter 8 with retarded control of nonlinear system in singular situation, and Chapter 9 extends optimal theory to H-infinity control for a nonlinear control system.Chapters 10 and 11 present the control of nonlinear dynamic systems, twin-rotor helicopter and 3D crane system, which are both underactuated, cascaded dynamic systems. Chapter 12 applies controls to antisynchronization/synchronization in the chaotic models based on Lyapunov exponent theorem, and Chapter 13 discusses developed stability analytic approaches in terms of Lyapunov stability. The analysis of economic activities, especially the relationship between stock return and economic growth, is presented in Chapter 14.

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  Soap Bubble Clusters in Thin Enclosures

  Said Shakerin

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  Affect During Instructional Video Game Learning: Story's Potential Role

  Osvaldo Jiménez

  Games have been linked to provoking a wide variety of emotional reactions, from fear (Therrien, 2009) to joy (Malone, 1981). While some of the authors in this volume have reported on the variety of emotional interactions that games can provide, such as mirroring of emotions (Humphries & McDonald, 2011), this chapter will examine how the presence of a component of a computer game, namely the story, may have had an impact on the link between emotions and learning. Specifically, this chapter focuses on the component of “story” in a game, and how the inclusion of a story may have both an emotional and subsequent learning impact. To explain this relationship, this chapter is separated into three sections. First, there is a discussion on the previous literature surrounding the potential links between story, emotions, learning, and games. Second, this chapter leverages this literature to introduce a study, which will investigate the potential role that story has in games, learning, and student emotions. Finally, the chapter will discuss the unexpected results from this study, further analyzing the potential links between emotions and learning, and grounding this analysis with the research literature.

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  Tug-of-war: Seeking help while playing an educational card game

  Osvaldo Jimenez, Ugochi Acholonu, and Dylan Arena

  This chapter examines motivational aspects that cause students to play educational games and learn their featured content, with particular emphasis on a card game called Tug-of-War. It begins with an overview of help-seeking in technical environments before turning to a discussion of an initial way to measure motivation to learn: by focusing on the type and amount of help students seek from others in the classroom while playing the game. It then describes the design and development of Tug-of-War and how it has improved learning outcomes with respect to traditional academic measures.

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  On-Demand Visualization on Scalable Shared Infrastructure

  Liu Huadong, Jinzhu Gao, Jian Huang, Micah Beck, and Terry Moore

  The emergence of high-resolution simulation, where simulation outputs have grown to terascale levels and beyond, raises major new challenges for the visualization community, which is serving computational scientists who want adequate visualization services provided to them on-demand. Many existing algorithms for parallel visualization were not designed to operate optimally on time-shared parallel systems or on heterogeneous systems. They are usually optimized for systems that are homogeneous and have been reserved for exclusive use. This chapter explores the possibility of developing parallel visualization algorithms that can use distributed, heterogeneous processors to visualize cutting edge simulation datasets. The authors study how to effectively support multiple concurrent users operating on the same large dataset, with each focusing on a dynamically varying subset of the data. From a system design point of view, they observe that a distributed cache offers various advantages, including improved scalability. They develop basic scheduling mechanisms that were able to achieve fault-tolerance and load-balancing, optimal use of resources, and flow-control using system-level back-off, while still enforcing deadline driven (i.e. time-critical) visualization.

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  Model-based Adaptive Tracking Control of Linear Time-varying System with Uncertainties

  Dongbin Lee and C. Nataraj

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  Shear Strength of Municipal Solid Waste

  Scott M. Merry, Jonathan D. Bray, and Dimitrios Zekkos

  While the engineering profession's understanding of the response of municipal solid waste (MSW) to monotonic and cyclic loadings has improved over the past two decades, several important issues remain unresolved. Characterization of the shear strength of MSW is a critical step in performing reliable static and seismic stability analyses of landfills. Landfill stability analyses can be no more reliable than the reliability of the engineer's estimate of the shear strength of the waste. Furthermore, the stress-strain response of MSW needs to be considered to provide compatibility between the mobilized shear strength and the level of deformation along potential failure surfaces. Relevant studies of MSW shear strength are summarized in this state-of-knowledge chapter. Large-scale laboratory test data, which includes direct shear (DS), triaxial (TX), and simple shear (SS) test results, and back-analyses of failed and stable landfill slopes in the field are considered. Findings from a recent comprehensive study by Zekkos (2005) are emphasized. There is large variability in the shear strength of MSW reported in the literature. Obstacles to characterizing the shear strength of MSW include its age, heterogeneity and the difficulty in recovering and testing representative waste samples due to the large size of some waste constituents. Differences in testing procedures employed and in the assumptions made when interpreting the test results also contribute to the variability of the shear strength of MSW. A consistent conceptual framework to perform and to evaluate the results of the laboratory and in-situ tests performed on MSW is required. It is hoped that the recommendations provided as part of the first "International Waste Mechanics Symposium" will address this issue and work toward providing a common framework for advancing the profession's understanding of waste properties and mechanics through developing consensus on the performance and reporting of laboratory and field testing procedures. Published data reported in the literature on the shear strength of MSW are discussed in sections on large-scale tests and back-analyzed assessments. This literature review does not provide complete descriptions of the works completed by researchers, as this information is available in detail in the referenced papers. Instead, key findings are summarized. Following the literature review, a summary of the state-of-knowledge of MSW stress-strain response and strength is presented and recommendations are made for developing a consistent framework for performing and reporting shear strength data on MSW. Currently unresolved issues are also identified.

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  Wind Power for Farming and Food Processing

  C. P. Van Dam, Henry Shiu, Scott Johnson, and Scott Larwood

  Wind power can reliably and economically provide electricity to farms and other food processing applications. Wind turbines are available in a wide range of sizes, from under 1 kW to more than 3 MW of capacity. A farmer can invest in wind power in a number of ways: 1) land leasing to a wind plant developer, in which the farmer receives royalties for wind turbines installed on his land; 2) direct ownership of a wind turbine, in which the farmer buys a wind turbine and consumes the electricity it generates, reducing the amount of energy purchased from other sources; and 3) through a power purchase agreement, in which the farmer contracts to a third party, which owns, installs, and operates a wind turbine on the farmer's land, selling the wind-generated electricity back to the farmer at a mutually beneficial rate. Prospective investors/owners should make a careful economic assessment, weighing factors including resource availability (i.e., windiness), permitting requirements, and eligibility for incentive programs (e.g., rebates, tax benefits, and grants).

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  Design of scalable parallel algorithms for large-scale data analysis and visualization

  Qishi Wu and Jinzhu Gao